After SC intervention, farmers should withdraw protest: Punjab BJP

Punjab BJP president Ashwani Sharma on Tuesday appealed to agitating farmers to call off their protest after the Supreme Court's decision to set up a four-member panel to look into farmers' greivances.

The Punjab BJP chief also welcomed the apex court's decision to form the panel to resolve the issues raised by farmers in the three agriculture laws.

He hoped that all doubts of the farmers would be adequately addressed.

Reiterating that the farmers' fears about the discontinuation of minimum support price or the mandi system were completely unfounded, Sharma said the laws in no way were against the farmer interests.

In a statement, Sharma said the state farmers have contributed immensely to the nation's foodgrain stocks and the entire country is indebted to them for this.

Sharma regretted that no breakthrough could be made during the eight rounds of talk between the Centre and the farmer leaders and hoped that the Supreme Court intervention would help resolve the farmers' fears.

The Supreme Court Tuesday stayed the implementation of the three controversial farm laws till further orders and decided to set up a four-member committee to resolve the impasse over them between the Centre and farmers' unions protesting at Delhi borders.

The four members of this committee are Bhartiya Kisan Union president Bhupinder Singh Mann, Maharashtra's Shetkeri Sangthana chief Anil Ghanwat, South Asia International Food Policy Research Institute's director Pramod Kumar Joshi and agriculture economist Ashok Gulati.

Farmers who have been camping at the Delhi borders for over a month are demanding a repeal of the farm laws and a legal guarantee to the minimum support price for crops.