Veteran activist Anna Hazare on Monday again endorsed his support for farmers, shooting a warning missive to the Centre and threatening to resume his hunger strike if the government failed to fulfil his demands regarding the implementation of the Minimum Support Price (MSP) recommendations made by M. S. Swaminathan Commission and giving autonomy to the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP).
In a letter to Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, the anti-graft activist reminded the Modi government of the promises made to him by Mr. Tomar’s predecessor, Radha Mohan Singh, in February 2019.
At the time, Mr. Hazare had launched a hunger strike in his hometown Ralegan Siddhi (in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district) over appointment of a Lokpal and a number of agrarian issues including an increase in the MSP for farmers.
Then Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had managed to pacify Mr. Hazare by visiting him with a letter from Mr. Singh, with the promise of the constitution of a high-level committee to look into the attendant agrarian problems.
In his letter to Mr. Tomar, Mr. Hazare has enclosed Mr. Singh’s earlier letter assuring that a high-powered committee would prepare its report and submit it by October 30, 2019.
“The Centre had assured that it would take appropriate action on the demands on the basis of the committee’s report. But since nothing has been done till date to that effect, I am thinking of resuming the hunger strike which was called off on February 5, 2019,” Mr. Hazare wrote in his letter to Mr. Tomar.
He said the Centre would be soon be told of the date and venue of the fast.
Last week, during the December 8 ‘Bharat Bandh’, Mr. Hazare had observed a symbolic called by farmer outfits demanding the scrapping of the Centre’s farm laws.
