Haryana Congress says Centre should accept farmers’ demands

State BJP minister says politics behinds Dilli Chalo protest after talks with Union ministers ends in deadlock

Haryana leader of opposition and former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Tuesday urged the Union government to hold talks with farm union leaders and accept their pending demands.

Protesting farmers during their Dilli Chalo march on the Haryana-Punjab Shambhu border near Ambala on Tuesday. (ANI Photo)

Interacting with reporters while returning from Delhi, Hooda said that the Centre should accept the demands of the farmers and give a legal guarantee on the minimum support price (MSP) besides revoking cases filed during the farm agitation of 2021.

“The BJP promised to double the farmers’ income by 2022 but it failed to do so. The input cost has doubled and prices of crops were not hiked accordingly,” he said.

Hooda’s son and Rajya Sabha MP Deepender Hooda said in Jhajjar termed the farmers’ demands genuine and said the Centre should end the deadlock by accepting them.

“We had earlier announced to give jobs to the next of kin of farmers who died during the protest in 2021, if voted to power in Haryana,” he said.

Farmer unions have given a Dilli Chalo (march to Delhi) call to press for their demands, including waiver of farm loans and implementation of the MS Swaminathan commission’s recommendations.

Haryana education minister Kanwar Pal said he felt there was politics behind the farmers protest. “The work done by this (BJP) govt for the farmers was not done previously by any govt...We are with the farmers...I feel there is politics behind this...The govt wants the farmers to become economically stronger...All issues are solved by dialogue...The farmers are satisfied but agitators are agitating. The common farmer is saying that there is no govt better than this,” he said.

After Monday’s five-hour meeting between Union ministers Piyush Goyal and Arjun Munda and farm union representatives ended in a deadlock, the farmers from Punjab under the banner of Sanyukt Kisan morcha (non-political) decided to go ahead with the march to Delhi via Shambu and Khanauri borders with Haryana.

Munda said that the government wants to resolve the issues with the farmers and hinted at another round of talks.