Farmer leader Pandher asks for Central ordinance on legal guarantee for MSP

Farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher on Saturday demanded that the Centre should bring an ordinance to provide a legal guarantee on MSP (minimum support price), a key demand of farmers currently camping at the Shambhu and Khanauri points of the Punjab-Haryana border.

The demand comes a day before the fourth round of talks between farm leaders and Union ministers over their various demands.

"If it (Centre) brings out an ordinance, it can bring it overnight, if it wants to. If the government wants a resolution of the farmers' protest, then it should bring an ordinance with immediate effect that it will enact a law on MSP, then discussions can proceed further," Pandher told reporters at the Shambhu border.

As far as the modalities are concerned, Pandher said any ordinance has a six-month validity.

On the issue of a farm debts waiver, Pandher said the government is saying the loan amount has to be assessed. The government can collect data from banks in this regard, he said, adding, "It is a question of will."

Union ministers Arjun Munda, Piyush Goyal and Nityanand Rai and farmer leaders will meet on Sunday for their fourth round of talks. The two sides met earlier on 8, 12 and 15 February, but those talks remained inconclusive.

On the fifth day of their 'Delhi Chalo' march — called by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha — the farmers stayed put at the two border points of Punjab and Haryana as a way to press the Centre to accept their demands, including a legal guarantee of an MSP for crops.

Besides the legal guarantee, the farmers are also demanding implementation of the Swaminathan Commission's 2006 recommendations, pension for farmers and farm labourers, farm debt waivers, no hike in electricity tariff, withdrawal of police cases, "justice" for the victims of the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence, reinstatement of the Land Acquisition Act 2013, and compensation to the families of the farmers who died during the previous farmers' agitation of 2020-21.