Twelve major opposition parties, including the Congress, Trinamool Congress, Left parties, Samajwadi Party, Nationalist Congress Party and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Sunday extended their support to a countrywide protest call given by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha on May 26, marking six months of the farmers protest against the Centre's farm laws.
Farmers from various parts of the country are protesting at Delhi borders against the three farm laws brought by the Centre, alleging that the legislations will hamper farming.
In a joint statement issued here by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, former prime minister H D Devegowda, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar and chief ministers Mamata Banerjee, Uddhav Thackeray, M K Stalin and Hemant Soren said the Centre must stop being obdurate and immediately resume talks with farmer leaders and repeal the three farm laws.
Other signatories to the joint statement include former chief ministers Farooq Abdullah (National Conference), Akhilesh Yadav (Samajwadi Party), Tejaswi Yadav (Rashtriya Janata Dal), D Raja (Communist Party of India) and Sitaram Yechury (Communist Party of India-Marxist).
"We extend our support to the call given by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha to observe a countrywide protest day on May 26 marking the completion of six months of the heroic peaceful Kisan struggle," the statement said.
"The Central Government must stop being obdurate and immediately resume talks with SKM on these lines," it said.
The opposition leaders said that on May 12, they had jointly written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding the repeal of farm laws to protect lakhs of our annadatas becoming victims of the pandemic so that they can continue to produce food to feed the Indian people".
"We demand the immediate repeal of the farm laws and the legal entitlement to the Minimum Support Price of C2+50 per cent as recommended by the Swaminathan Commission," they said.
The three farm laws were passed by the parliament in September last and were later made a law after presidential assent.
The farmers have been protesting at Singhu and Tikri borders with Haryana, Ghazipur border with Uttar Pradesh and other places.
