Farmers set deadline to Centre

The central government has time till November 26, after that, from November 27, farmers will reach the border at the movement sites around Delhi on tractors from villages and strengthen the tents at the movement site with solid fortifications, tweets Tikait, the BKU national spokesperson

Ghaziabad: Bhartiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait on Monday said the Centre has time till November 26 to repeal its contentious farm laws, after which farmers' protest around Delhi will be intensified. November 26 will mark one year of the ongoing farmers' stir at Delhi's border points of Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur. The protest is being led by farmers collective Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM). The BKU, whose supporters are encamping at Ghazipur on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border, is also a part of the SKM.

"The central government has time till November 26, after that, from November 27, farmers will reach the border at the movement sites around Delhi on tractors from villages and strengthen the tents at the movement site with solid fortifications," Tikait, the BKU national spokesperson, tweeted in Hindi. BKU spokesperson Saurabh Upadhyay said the protest against the "black laws" will not be called off until the laws are not rolled back.

"The Modi government can take the laws back today and the protest will end. They can continue for another 10 years but if the laws are not repealed and a legal guarantee on MSP ensured, the protest would go on," he told PTI as scores of people remained pitched in at Ghazipur in temporary shelters on Monday.

The Delhi Police had on Friday started removing barricades and concertina wirings it had put at the Delhi-Meerut Expressway (National Highway-9) at Ghazipur to keep protesters from moving towards the national capital. The Supreme Court on October 21 had said farmers protesting at Delhi borders against the three farms laws have the right to agitate but they cannot block roads indefinitely.

Hundreds of farmers are encamped at the three Delhi borders since November 2020 with the demand that the government repeal the Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; Farmers' (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020; and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020. They are also demanding a new law to guarantee the minimum support price (MSP) for crops. The Centre, which held 11 rounds of formal dialogue with farmers, has maintained that the new laws are pro-farmer, while protesters claim they would be left at the mercy of corporations because of the legislations.