Govt should take initiative, restart dialogue process with farmers to find solution: Hooda
- February 23, 2021
- Updated: 12:58 am
DW BUREAU / Chandigarh
Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Monday said the Centre should take initiative and restart the dialogue with farmers protesting against the farm laws to find a solution to the issue. The government has held 11 rounds of negotiation with protesting unions and these have remained inconclusive with regard to rollback of the laws.
"The government should find a solution to this soon. The government should take the initiative and restart the process of dialogue and accept the demands of the farmers," Hooda told reporters here.
Farmers, mostly from Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, have been protesting at Delhi's borders since November 28 last year demanding rollback of the laws.
The three farm laws, enacted in September last year, have been projected by the government as major reforms in the agriculture sector that will remove middlemen and allow farmers to sell anywhere in the country.
However, the protesting farmers have expressed apprehension that the new laws would pave the way for eliminating the safety cushion of MSP and do away with the mandis, leaving them at the mercy of big corporates. The Centre has repeatedly asserted that these mechanisms will remain.
Meanwhile, Hooda was asked to comment on the Enforcement Directorate filing a chargesheet against him and some others, including four retired IAS officers, in a money-laundering case linked to alleged irregularities in the allocation of over a dozen industrial plots worth more than Rs 30 crore in the Panchkula area in 2013.
When asked to comment on allegations that the plots were allocated to his "acquaintances", Hooda said he had earlier also stated that "all this is politically motivated".
"I have full faith in the judiciary, everything will be crystal clear," he added.
Lashing out at the BJP-JJP government, Hooda claimed that the dispensation gave preference to the youth of other states in the Sub Divisional Officers' recruitment in the electricity department.
(editor@dailyworld.in)