A FIVE-member delegation comprising Rahul Gandhi (Indian National Congress), Sharad Pawar (Nationalist Congress party), Sitaram Yechury (Communist Party of India (Marxist)), D Raja (Communist Party of India) and TKS Elangovan (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) submitted a memorandum to the president of India, on December 9, on the ongoing struggle of the farmers. Due to restrictions of Covid protocol, only a five-member delegation was permitted to meet the president of India.

The memorandum noted that more than twenty different political parties, including many parties running state governments, have extended their solidarity with the ongoing historic struggle of the Indian peasantry and extended wholehearted support to their call for a Bharat bandh yesterday, December 8, demanding the repeal of the retrograde agri-laws and the electricity amendment bill.

These new agri-laws, passed in the parliament in an anti-democratic manner preventing a structured discussion and voting, threaten India’s food security, destroy Indian agriculture and our farmers, lay the basis for the abolishment of the minimum support price (MSP) and mortgage Indian agriculture and our markets to the caprices of multi-national agri-business corporates and domestic corporates.

The delegation urged upon the president, as the custodian of the Indian Constitution, to persuade the government not to be obdurate and accept the demands raised by India’s annadatas.