In a huge development, farmers taking part in negotiations on Thursday refused to accept the food provided by the government saying that they had brought their own food. One farmer was quoted by news agency ANI, “We are not accepting food or tea offered by the government. We have brought our own food.”
The latest development shows the level of anger prevalent amongst the protesting farmers. In an earlier round of the talks, farmer leaders had rejected the government’s proposal to set up committees to look into their objections on the Farm Laws.
#Farmers at Vigyan Bhawan get their own food. Langar during lunch break pic.twitter.com/dS70Lme9y4
— Kirandeep (@raydeep) December 3, 2020
Meanwhile, several top Punjabi leaders including an erstwhile partner of the NDA, Parkash Singh Badal, on Thursday announced that he had returned his Padma award to protest what he said was the ‘betrayal of the farmers’ by the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Another prominent Sikh MP, Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, too said that he was returning his Padma award to express his solidarity with protesting farmers.