Farmers' stir: Stalemate continues

New Delhi: As talks between the Centre and farmer unions remained inconclusive for the fifth time, the Union government on Saturday sought time from unions to present a concrete proposal and proposed another meeting on December 9.

At the Round 5 meeting, the farmers unions went on a 'maun vrat' (vow of silence) and sought a reply in 'yes' or 'no' on their key demand of repealing the three new farm laws. They also threatened to walk out if the government was not willing to scrap the laws.

Farmers' leaders said they do not want anything less than the complete repeal of the laws, which, they claim, are the laws meant to end the mandi system and minimum support price procurement system to give for benefits to the corporates.

During the meeting, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar appealed to the union leaders to send back the elderly and children to their homes from the protest sites and assured that farmers procurement at minimum support price will continue.

The talks between the government and the protesting unions began around 2.30 pm and was also attended by Railway, Commerce and Food Minister Piyush Goyal and Minister of State for Commerce Som Parkash.

Halfway through the talks, the farmers' leaders threatened to walk out if the government was not willing to scrap the agri laws enacted in September.

However, the government managed to convince them to continue with the talks and offered to take back cases filed against farmers for stubble burning, as also the cases filed against some farmer activists.

Even as talks ended in a deadlock for the fifth time, Tomar said, " I want to assure farmers that Modi govt was fully committed to you, & will remain so in future. Under PM Modi's leadership, several agricultural schemes have been implemented. Budget & MSP has also increased." "We wanted some firm suggestions from farmer leaders but couldn't get those; We will meet again on December 9," he added.