The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), representing a coalition of farmers' unions that staged protests against the now-shelved farm laws near Delhi in 2020, has announced its intention to restart its agitation to pressure the government into fulfilling its commitments.
The SKM seeks to meet all MPs between July 16 and 18 to lobby for its updated demand charter. These include a legal guarantee on minimum support prices on all crops to ensure a 50 per cent profit, loan waiver, no privatisation of power, public sector insurance for crops and livestock and scrapping of the “pro-corporate” PM Fasal Bima Yojana.
Their other demands include ₹10,000 pension for farmers and agriculture workers, an end to forced land acquisition and what they call "bulldozer raj", exclusion of multinational companies from agriculture and India's withdrawal from the World Trade Organisation. They also seek the removal of GST on agricultural inputs and the restoration of states' right to tax.
The group is also demanding a separate Union agriculture budget, the abolition of the ministry of cooperation and a solution to the issue of stray wildlife. They are seeking compensation for the families of protesters who died during the unrest in 2020 and 2021, including those who were mowed down by a convoy in which the son of then minister Ajay Mishra Teni was allegedly travelling.
On Wednesday, Punjab and Haryana High Court instructed the Haryana government to remove barriers along its border with Punjab that have prevented a faction of the SKM from advancing to Delhi to protest for similar demands.
Through a statement, the group said on Thursday: "On August 9, 2024, the SKM shall observe Quit India Day as 'Corporates Quit India Day' by holding protest demonstrations across the country in support of the demand charter. The demand that India must come out of WTO and no MNCs in agricultural production and trade will be popularised among the farmers.”
Again on August 17, protests will be held outside the residences of Punjab AAP ministers on local issues and in favour of the state's federal demands.
The statement added: “In the upcoming Assembly elections, the state coordination committees of Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir will convene their meetings and ensure an independent and massive campaign among the farmers based on the SKM’s demands to expose, oppose and punish the BJP in the forthcoming Assembly elections.”
