Centre offers contract-based assured buying on MSP for five crops; farmers to get back today

The fourth meeting between Union Ministers and farmer representatives to deliberate on their demands, including a legal guarantee for minimum support price on crops, remained inconclusive on late Sunday. After the meeting, Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said the meeting was held cordially in a positive direction with new ideas surrounding how to take the work done in farmers’ interest in the last 10 years to be taken forward. The general elections are nearing so on such issues deliberations would continue.” Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh said that farmers of the state can adopt cotton and maize only if they get the MSP. The Samyukt Kisan Morcha, the umbrella body of farmer unions that spearheaded the 2020-21 farmers’ protests against the Centre’s farm laws, as well as the Bharatiya Kisan Union, one of the largest outfits in Punjab, announced that they would hold day-and-night protests and demonstrations in front of the residences of BJP MPs, Ministers and MLAs in the State from February 20 to 22, and make all toll plazas “free” in support of the farmers’ demands. In Haryana, Bharatiya Kisan Union president Gurnam Singh said it held a meeting with different farmer outfits and ‘khap’ panchayats, and it was decided that a strategy would be finalised depending on the outcome of the meeting between the Centre and the farm leaders.