Chennai: The seventh round of talks between protesting farmer unions and three Central Ministers ended inconclusively on Monday as the farmer leaders insisted on the repeal of the three contentious farm laws right from the beginning, even as the government listed various benefits from the Acts.
The next meeting will take place on 8 January, farmer leaders said. The two sides took a long break after just about one hour of discussions, during which representatives of protesting farmers had their own food, arranged from langar (community kitchen), as they have been doing for the last few times.
However, unlike the last round of talks on 30 December, the ministers did not join the union leaders for the langar food and were seen having their own discussion separately during the break, which lasted for almost two hours.
The two sides got together again to resume their discussions at around 5.15 pm, but no headway could be made as the talks remained focussed on the farmers’ demand for the repeal of the Acts.
Farmer leaders said the government said it needs to consult internally and thereafter it would come back to the unions.
The union leaders will also have their own meeting on Tuesday to decide their next course of action.
In Monday’s talks, the two sides did not even discuss another key demand of farmers for a legal guarantee to the Minimum Support Price (MSP) procurement system.
On 30 December, the sixth round of talks was held between the government and the farmer unions, where some common ground was reached on two demands, decriminalisation of stubble-burning and continuation of power subsidies.
However, no breakthrough could be reached on the two main demands of the protesting farmers — a repeal of the three recent farm laws and a legal guarantee to the MSP procurement system.