Budget 2024-25: Talk to Real Farmers' Representatives, AIKS Flays FinMin for Not Inviting SKM

New Delhi: Ahead of the Budget presentation, the Finance Minister holds discussions with stakeholders across sectors as part of the preparatory process. However, farmers’ collective Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), which spearheaded the year-long agitation against the now repealed three farm laws, as well as the All-India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) have not been invited for talks on June 21, by the newly elected National Democratic Alliance government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

In a statement, AIKS said, "It has come to our notice that the Finance Minister will personally hold pre-budget consultations with various stakeholders to consider and take suggestions on the Union Budget, 2024-25 and in this process a meeting has been scheduled with farmer unions and agricultural economists on June 21, 2024.”

Highlighting the role played by SKM in strengthening the agriculture sector, AIKS said that “Samyukta Kisan Morcha has always been giving memorandums to the government on agricultural issues along with proposals to resolve the deepening agrarian crisis."  Yet, it has been kept out of the crucial talks.

The statement said that the largest organisation of farmers, SKM has always been called to place proposals before the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices to fix Minimum Support Prices on Rabi and Kharif seasons, adding “however, in this case, the BJP-led NDA government and the finance minister have not invited the SKM leadership or the representatives of the Kisan Sabha for the meeting.”

Flaying the government, AIKS said: “Such an approach of the government makes it clear that the government is deliberately keeping the genuine representatives of the farmers out of the discussion and is indulging in a ridiculous exercise which has no bearing on the genuine representatives of the farmers.”

AIKS demanded that the government should talk to the leadership of the SKM.

“Now the time has come for them to give up their arrogance and learn a lesson from the decisive defeat in 159 constituencies in the recently concluded elections and call for talks with an open mind,” it said, adding that “In the absence of such a move, the government must be ready to face a mass mobilisation of the of farmers across the country very soon.”