About six months ahead of the 2027 Punjab assembly elections, in which the rural/farmer vote is key, the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre has moved to engage with protesting farmer groups. Union Minister Manohar Lal Khattar held a late-night meeting with the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political), an umbrella organisation of farm unions, in Gurugram on Thursday, September 3. The nearly three-and-a-half-hour meeting saw farmer leaders submit a 10-point charter addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, putting guarantees for minimum support price (MSP), waiver of farm debt , concerns over the India-US trade deal, issues related to electricity transmission lines, and the withdrawal of cases against protesters on the table.
On electricity, Khattar, who is the Power Minister, reportedly acknowledged shortcomings in the existing compensation policy for land affected by high-tension transmission lines. He assured the delegation that corrective measures were being considered and that a better policy would be brought soon, and agreed to bring transparency into the process of assessing land market value. Because they were denied remunerative MSP, on debt, the charter argued that farmers were pushed into borrowing.
The charter stated that in 2011, as chairman of the Working Group on Consumer Affairs, Narendra Modi as Gujarat CM recommended to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that statutory provisions be used to ensure that crop transactions between farmer and buyer do not take place below the government-declared MSP.
The demand charter was signed by Dallewal and co-convener Kurburu Shantakumar. The meeting had originally been scheduled by the Centre for September 4, but was advanced at the request of the minister, according to a press statement issued by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) on Friday. Convener Jagjit Singh Dallewal led the 13-member SKM delegation and drew leaders from eight states, including PR Pandian (Tamil Nadu), Mahesh Belgaonkar (Karnataka), Gajendra Jhala (Gujarat), Indrajit Panniwala (Rajasthan), Rajinder Chahal, Harshdeep Singh Gill and Abhimanyu Kohar (Haryana), Leeladhar Singh Rajput (Madhya Pradesh), Prahlad Poonia and Sonveer Chaudhary (Uttar Pradesh), and Satnam Singh Behru and Sukhdev Singh Bhojraj (Punjab).
Khattar, who was chief minister of Haryana before shifting to PM Narendra Modi’s Cabinet, termed the talks “very good and cordial” and said the farmers’ demands would be conveyed to the concerned departments. A more detailed account of what the minister said inside the room came from the SKM statement.
