No representation in MSP panel, Punjab fumes

Ruchika M Khanna

Chandigarh, July 19

The exclusion of the Punjab Government and premiere state institutions from the Central Government committee on agriculture issues, including an effective minimum support price mechanism, has raised Punjab’s hackles.

• Editorial: Row over MSP panel

While officers from Karnataka, Odisha, Sikkim and Andhra Pradesh have been included in the committee, no one from Punjab has been included. Political and farmer leaders allege that the members of the committee are from among those who had framed the three contentious farm laws. Their role as members will always be under suspicion, they allege.

No legal guarantee

We never said the panel will provide legal guarantee of the MSP. NS Tomar, Agri Minister

The exclusion of Punjab has led to a political slugfest between the ruling Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress, with the latter blaming the former for not taking up Punjab’s interests with the Centre.

This has also agitated farmer unions in the state, which have rejected the constitution of the committee and are once again trying to regroup for another round of agitation.

Dr Darshan Pal of the SKM told The Tribune that the SKM had rejected the committee formed by the Centre and decided to go ahead with their agitation through conventions and a nationwide chakka jam on July 31.

The BKU Ekta (Ugrahan), the largest farmer union in Punjab, too, has rejected the committee. “We know that the committee will work under government pressure. So the SKM will not send names of its representatives in this committee,” Sukhdev Singh Kokrikalan, general secretary of the union, said. The committee has kept space for three representatives of the SKM.

“No representation has been given in the committee to Punjab Agricultural University, though representatives from the National Institute of Agricultural Extension, the Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Jammu, and Jawaharlal Nehru Agricultural University, Jabalpur, are represented through their Director General/vice-chancellors. The BJP seems to have a hidden agenda and is deliberately ignoring the state,” Punjab Agriculture Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal said. Farmers from Punjab had spearheaded the struggle to seek withdrawal of these laws which seems to have been held against the state, he said.

Punjab RS member Raghav Chadha said the committee to make the MSP more effective was the latest example of the BJP’s cynical and shortsighted bungling on agriculture, as the dispensation seemed not to have learnt any lesson.

SKM refuses to join panel; to hold stir

• SKM’s Darshan Pal says they have rejected the committee
• To go ahead with agitation through conventions and a chakka jam on July 31