Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Thursday accused the Centre of ignoring the Swaminathan Commission’s report. He said that conferring the Bharat Ratna to the agricultural scientist was not enough, and the government should respect the people who feed the nation.
“The demand (of farmers) is for a minimum support price at 50 per cent of the cost of comprehensive production costs…That is exactly what the Swaminathan Commission has recommended and Swaminathan was conferred the Bharat Ratna by PM Modi himself recently. Conferring awards is not sufficient. Respecting the farmers and respecting the people who feed all of us is what is required of this government,” he said. Yechury further called for an immediate end to the repression of the farmers and insists on conducting meaningful talks with the BJP-led central government.
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“We want an immediate end to this repression. Meaningful talks that have to be conducted. And the day after tomorrow, along with the trade unions, on the 16th of this month, there’s going to be a big nationwide action programme, including some sectoral industrial strikes. So this is something that the Modi government cannot ignore. It has to immediately concede,” he said. Yechury also condemned the central government’s recent action against farmers at the Punjab-Haryana Shambhu border and said, “This is barbarous, the barbarity of this attack. We’ve never heard of drones being used to fire tear gas shells on the farmers. And with all sorts of barricades that have been erected like it was erected during the historic farmer struggle, they are trying to stop the march of the farmers to Delhi.”
Yechury also accused the BJP-led central government of misleading the public with their willingness to engage in discussions with the farmers as these talks have not yielded any progress. “They (BJP-led central government) have said this often in the past for one whole year, when the farmers’ historic struggle was going on. Every time they repeat, we are prepared for talks, we are prepared for talks. But what do those talks yield? Those talks do not progress even an inch. It’s not a question of just sitting down to talk… This is only misleading the public that the government is prepared for talks, but talks on what issue? How much is the government prepared to give? And this is a legitimate demand on which there can be no compromise. A minimum support price guaranteed assurance of lifting the harvest of the farmers at the minimum support price. This is an essential must,” he said.
