SKM rejects govt's MSP committee; says 'so-called' farmer leaders who supported farm laws in panel

The government has made a provision to include three members from the SKM in the panel.Senior SKM member Darshan Pal alleged that the Centres committee looks bogus as it does not talk about ensuring the legal rights of farmers.There is no representation from Punjab in the committee.

The Samyukta Kisan Morcha, an umbrella body of farmer unions, on Tuesday rejected the government's committee on minimum support price, saying ''so-called farmer leaders'' who supported the now-repealed farm laws are its members, and declared that it will not be a part of the panel.

In its official statement, the SKM alleged that the government has included five of its ''loyalists'', who openly advocated the three ''anti-farmer'' laws, in the committee and all of them are either directly associated with the BJP-RSS or support their policies.

''These five people spoke openly in favour of all three anti-farmer laws and most of them have been spewing venom against the farmers' movement,'' stated the statement issued by five SKM leaders --- Pal, Hannan Mollah, Joginder Singh Ugrahan, Yudhveer Singh and Yogendra Yadav.

According to the SKM, it had unanimously decided in its national meeting on July 3 that unless the government clarifies the jurisdiction and terms of reference of this committee, there is no point to nominate a representative of the SKM to the panel.

''There is no mention of making a law on MSP in the agenda of the committee. Some items have been put in the agenda on which the government committee is already established. In the name of reforms in agricultural marketing, an item has been inserted through which the government can try to bring back three black laws,'' it also stated.

The SKM leaders said that the struggle for the legal guarantee of MSP to ensure fair price for the crop to the farmers will continue.

The government on Monday formed a committee on MSP, eight months after it promised to set up such a panel while withdrawing the three contentious farm laws.

Former agriculture secretary Sanjay Agrawal will be the chairman of the committee. The government has made a provision to include three members from the SKM in the panel.

Senior SKM member Darshan Pal alleged that the Centre's committee looks ''bogus'' as it does not talk about ensuring the legal rights of farmers.

''There is no representation from Punjab in the committee. This committee formed by the Centre does not talk about ensuring the legal rights of farmers. This committee lacks this virtue and looks bogus,'' Pal told PTI.

Under the umbrella of SKM, thousands of farmers had held a year-long agitation at Delhi borders and forced the government to withdraw the farm laws.

While announcing the repeal of three farm laws in November last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised to set up a committee to discuss the farmers' demand for a legal guarantee on MSP.

The agriculture ministry issued a gazette notification announcing the committee in this regard.

The panel comprise Niti Aayog member Ramesh Chand, agri-economists CSC Shekhar from the Indian Institute of Economic Development and Sukhpal Singh from IIM-Ahmedabad and senior member of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) Naveen P Singh.

Among farmers' representatives, the panel has national award-winning farmer Bharat Bhushan Tyagi, three members from SKM, and five members from other farmer organisations that include Gunwant Patil, Krishnaveer Choudhary, Pramod Kumar Choudhary, Guni Prakash and Sayyed Pasha Patel.

Two members of the farmers' cooperative, IFFCO Chairman Dilip Sanghani and CNRI General Secretary Binod Anand are included in the panel.

Senior members of agricultural universities, five central government secretaries and chief secretaries of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim and Odisha are also part of the committee.