Minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Narendra Singh Tomar on Wednesday informed Parliament that Government of India did not have any record of farmers who died during the agitation against the three farm laws that are now repealed. The answer came to a question about “the number of cases registered against farmers in connection with the agitation; data on the number of farmers who died during the agitations held in and around the National Capital; and whether the Government proposes to provide financial assistance to the kin of farmers who died during the said agitations, if so, the details thereof and if not, the reasons therefor?”
To these questions, the written reply was, “The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare has no record in the matter and hence the question does not arise.”
Meanwhile, farmers’ organizations protesting continuously even after repeal of the farm laws and the opposition claim that there are deaths of more than 700 farmers while protesting against the contentious agricultural laws at the Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur borders since November 2020. They have also demanded withdrawal of the police cases lodged against protesting farmers, as well as compensation for the kin of the farmers who died during the protests.
There was a list of questions that were asked by opposition leaders like Rajiv Ranjan Lalan Singh, A.M. Ariff from, Adv Dean Kuriakose, Abdul Khaleque, T.N. Prathapan and Anto Antony from Congress, Prof Saugata Roy from All India Trinamool Congress and N.K. Premachandran from the Revolutionary Socialist Party to Narendra Singh Tomar.
Tomar and his ministry responded by saying, “The Government engaged itself actively and constantly with the agitating farmer unions to end the protests and 11 rounds of negotiating talks were held between the Government & agitating farmer unions to resolve the issues.” The response continued: “The Farm Laws Repeal Bill, 2021 has been passed by both houses of Parliament on 29.11.2021.”
Congress leader Manish Tewari moved an adjournment motion on Monday and Tuesday in the Lok Sabha requesting “to direct the government to create a record of farmers who lost their lives during farm laws protest and give compensation to their families” and called it a matter of “urgent importance”.
Meanwhile, the Samyukt Kisan Morcha, an umbrella body of several farmer unions spearheading the protests said the farmers’ protest will go on till the government accepts their demand to provide legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP) and have called upon the government to come to the table and discuss all pending issues with the farm leaders.