Farm unions are taking their fight back to Parliament this month. At least 200 protestors will protest outside Parliament every day during the monsoon session, said the Samyukt Kisan Morcha, in a statement issued after its general body meeting at the Singhu border on Sunday.
The monsoon session begins on July 19. Farmers will begin their daily protests on July 22, and will include five members from each organisation represented in the SKM, an umbrella body of farm unions. Earlier plans had called for a mass march to Parliament, but that has been dropped for now.
Before the Parliament session begins, SKM plans to “send a warning letter to all opposition parties in the country, to ensure that the session is used to support the farmers' struggle, and that farmers' demands are met by the government.”
“We will ask the opposition MPs to raise the issue every day inside the House while we will sit outside in protest. We will tell them not to benefit the Centre by walking out of a session. Don't let the session run till the government addresses the issue,” said SKM leader Balbir Singh Rajewal who heads one faction of the Bharatiya Kisan Union.
The unions are demanding the repeal of three farm reform laws that Parliament passed in September 2020, although the Supreme Court subsequently suspended implementation of the laws.
The SKM has already called for a nationwide agitation against the hike in fuel prices and the rising costs of essential commodities.
Responding to Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar’s statement that the Centre is ready for talks on changing provisions of the laws, but not for repeal them, the farm unions reiterated their position that mere amendments will not work as the objective of the legislations are flawed. “The government has so far not given a single reason as to why these laws cannot and should not be repealed,” said the SKM statement. “We can only conclude that an elected government in the world's largest democracy is playing ego-games with the largest section of its citizens - farmers. And is preferring to choose the interests of crony capitalists over the annadaatas of the country,” it added.
