Farm leaders insist on MSP ordinance

Chandigarh: A day before the crucial meeting with Union ministers, farm leaders on Saturday asked the Centre to bring an ordinance on giving a legal guarantee to MSP, while a tractor march and dharnas were held in support of farmers protesting at the borders of Punjab. Union ministers Arjun Munda, Piyush Goyal and Nityanand Rai and farmer leaders from Punjab will meet on Sunday for the fourth round of talks.

The two sides met earlier on February 8, 12 and 15, 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 Shambhu and Khanauri points of the Punjab-Haryana border as they press the Centre to accept their demands, including a legal guarantee to minimum support price (MSP) for crops.

Farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher on Saturday demanded that the Centre should bring an ordinance on giving a legal guarantee to MSP, a key demand of protesting farmers. Stating that the Centre has a right to take “political” decisions, Pandher said, “If the government wants resolution of farmers’ protest, then it should bring an ordinance with an immediate effect that it will

enact a law on MSP, then discussion can proceed further. It (Centre) can bring the ordinance overnight, if it wants so,” he added.