Farmers’ protests | No talks till government creates positive conditions, say unions
The HinduLeaders of the agitating farmers on January 31 asserted that the unions would not take the initiative to resume dialogue with the government till such the time as the Centre created a conducive atmosphere for talks. Responding to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement at an all-party meeting that the proposal to suspend the three farm laws for 18 months still stood, Buta Singh Burj Gill, head of a Bharatiya Kisan Union faction in Punjab said that “Prime Minister had spoken on the three farm laws for the first time saying that suspension of laws was a good proposal and talks must resume. We too are ready for talks, but the government must de-escalate the situation, restore Internet services, lift the barricades and stop attacks at the sit-in sites.” Addressing a press conference, Mr. Gill said the farmers were holding peaceful demonstration, but the government seemed hell bent on vitiating the atmosphere and had snapped the water supply and Internet services, besides putting barricades on both sides at the Singhu border. On Mr. Modi’s offer that government was just a phone call away, Mr. Gill added that there was so far no official communication to the farmer leaders on the resumption of talks, and the unions would not take the initiative till the government created a conducive atmosphere. Earlier, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, responding to Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar’s tweets on the three farm laws, said the tweets were a mix of “ignorance and misinformation”.