12 OPPN PARTIES EXTEND SUPPORT TO FARM UNIONS’ STIR ON MAY 26

NEW DELHI: Leaders of twelve major opposition parties, including the Congress, Trinamool Congress, the Left, Samajwadi Party, Nationalist Congress Party and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, on Sunday extended their support to a nationwide protest call given by the Samyukt Kisan Morcha -- a platform of farmer unions -- on May 26, to mark six months of the farmers’ protest against the Centre’s three new farm laws.

Farmers have been protesting at five sites in large camps near Delhi’s borders: Singhu, Ghaziabad, Tikri, Dhansa and at Shahjahanpur on the Rajasthan-haryana border, demanding the rollback of three laws passed in September last year to lift restrictions on trade in farm produce.

In a joint statement, signed by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, former prime minister HD Devegowda, NCP chief Sharad Pawar and chief ministers Mamata Banerjee, Uddhav Thackeray, M K Stalin and Hemant Soren, said: “We extend our support to the call given by the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) to observe a countrywide protest day on May 26 marking the completion of six months of the heroic peaceful Kisan struggle.”

The leaders demanded “the immediate repeal of the farm laws and the legal entitlement to the Minimum Support Price 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,” it said.

Other signatories are former CMS Farooq Abdullah and Akhilesh Yadav, Tejashwi Yadav, D Raja and Sitaram Yechury.

Reacting to the statement, SKM leader Gurnam Singh Chaduni said: “Our movement is apolitical but we welcome the support of opposition parties. However, only farmers will participate in our movement.”