Veteran activist Anna Hazare expressed his support for farmers on Monday. He warned the Centre and threatened to continue his hunger strike if the government fails to fulfil his demands regarding the implementation of the Minimum Support Price (MSP) recommendations made by M. S. Swaminathan Commission and providing autonomy to the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP).
Mr Hazare wrote a letter to the Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Narendra Singh Tomar. In this letter, he reminded the Modi government of the promises made to him by then Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Radha Mohan Singh, in February 2019.
At that time, Mr Hazare launched a hunger strike in his hometown Ralegan Siddhi located in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district. His strike was regarding the appointment of a Lokpal and many agrarian issues including an increase in the MSP for farmers.
Then Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis was able to break Mr Hazare’s strike by visiting him with a letter from Mr Singh. He was promised that a high-level committee will be constituted to look into the agrarian problems.
In his letter to Mr Tomar, Mr Hazare enclosed Mr Singh’s earlier letter in which he was assured that a high-powered committee would look into the matter, prepare its report and submit it by October 30, 2019.
Mr Hazare wrote in his letter to Mr Tomar that the Centre had assured him that it would take proper actions on the demands on the basis of the committee’s report. But since no significant step has been taken till date to that effect, he is thinking of resuming the hunger strike which was called off on February 5, 2019.
He said the Centre would be soon be made aware of the date and venue of the fast.
Last week, ‘Bharat Bandh’ was called, Mr Hazare endorsed the blockade called by farmer organizations demanding the scrapping of the Centre’s three farm laws.
