Opposition parties back farmers’ protest on May 26

Call on Centre to give up obduracy, talk to unions and repeal three farm laws

Updated - May 23, 2021 07:33 pm IST - NEW DELHI:

Farmers sanitizing protest site due to ongoing COVID-19 crisis during their protest on farm law issue at Singhu Border, in New Delhi on May 13, 2021.

Farmers sanitizing protest site due to ongoing COVID-19 crisis during their protest on farm law issue at Singhu Border, in New Delhi on May 13, 2021.

Twelve Opposition parties on Sunday issued a statement in support of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha's (SKM) call for a national protest on May 26 to mark six months of the farmers’ protest began.

Also read: More farmers joining protest at Delhi borders after harvesting season: SKM

“We demand the immediate repeal of the farm laws and the legal entitlement to the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of C2+50 per cent as recommended by the Swaminathan Commission. The Central government must stop being obdurate and immediately resume talks with the SKM on these lines,” the statement read.

The statement was signed by party leaders Sonia Gandhi (Congress), H.D. Deve Gowda (Janata Dal-Secular), Sharad Pawar (Nationalist Congress Party), Mamata Banerjee (Trinamool Congress), Uddhav Thackeray (Shiv Sena), M.K. Stalin (DMK), Hemant Soren (Jharkhand Mukti Morcha), Farooq Abdullah (Jammu and Kashmir National Conference), Akhilesh Yadav (Samajwadi Party), Tejaswi Yadav (Rashtriya Janata Dal), D. Raja (Communist Party of India) and Sitaram Yechury (CPI-Marxist).

Also read: Don’t hold protest over COVID, it may prove super-spreader: Amarinder to farmers

The leaders reiterated what they had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 12: “Repeal farm laws to protect lakhs of our annadatas becoming victims of the pandemic so that they can continue to produce food to feed the Indian people”.

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