SKM bars discussions on ‘backchannel talks’ held with Centre during agri law stir

It may be noted that during the course of agitation against the now-repealed three central farm laws, allegations were raised against a few farmer union leaders for holding backchanneltalks with Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and that SKM was kept in the dark about that. After the agitation was lifted from Delhi borders, a fact-finding committee was constituted by SKM to find more details about the ‘talks’ and also to question farmer union leaders about the controversial episode.

Joginder Singh Ugrahan – a member of SKM’s fact-finding committee – had sent a letter to Buta Singh Burjgill in the past asking him questions over his role in the communication with Shah.

The committee has three members, but as the other two members had their hands full, Joginder Singh Ugrahan was contacting all those leaders who, according to SKM, had a role in the backdoor conversations.

But Buta Singh Burjgill had challenged Joginder Singh Ugrahan’s authority in the recent past for sending him letters and seeking answers and even had given a statement in the media that he was not answerable to Joginder Singh Ugrahan.

Sources said while this committee started working soon after the farm agitation was lifted, the issue hasn’t been resolved till date. Earlier Buta Singh Burjgill was cooperating with the committee, but his recent statement had led to a war of words among farmer union leaders, sources added.

Dr Sunilam, a farmer leader and member of the coordination committee of SKM, while talking with The Indian Express said, “This matter came before the SKM in Thursday’s meeting and we decided to freeze the issue for the time being. However, Buta Singh Burjgill has been told to reply to the letter sent by Joginder Singh Ugrahan as he is a member of our fact-finding committee. Burjgill had challenged Ugrahan, but now he has agreed to send a reply to that letter. In addition to this, all the members of SKM have been told not to circulate any content on social media and rather they should resolve the issue within themselves or at SKM-level. If anyone tries to defame SKM or uses social media for any issues, due action will be taken against them. Now, the next step will be taken after receiving Burjgill’s reply.”

It may be noted that the fact-finding committee has been approaching nine farmer union leaders for more than a year over the issue of backdoor talks with the Centre, but the issue is still hanging in the air.

Balbir Singh Rajewal, Harmeet Singh Kadian, Kulwant Singh, etc., were the other farmer union leaders who were approached by the committee for their role in the backdoor talks with the central government.

The issue had also created a rift within BKU Dakaunda because the matter was raised by a few leaders in BKU Dakaunda’s state-level meeting held last week. In the meeting, four farmer union leaders were expelled by the state committee of the union on the grounds that they had levelled false allegations against the union president and posted them on social media. The expelled members are – Gurdeep Singh, Balwinder Jethuke, Sahib Singh and Babbu Singh. All of them are close to Manjit Singh Dhaner, senior vice-president of BKU Dakaunda. Sources said that the issue of financial irregularities was also raised in the state-level meeting of the union. The union could head for a split if the matter is not resolved, the sources added.

In SKM’s meeting on Thursday, sources revealed that Joginder Singh Ugrahan initially said that the issue of Buta Singh Burjgill should be discussed first. But as the SKM members said that the matter will be taken up in the order as per the items placed on the agenda, Ugrahan in protest walked out of the meeting for sometime. He even demanded suspension of Burjgill from SKM. Although he got some support on this, the majority preferred to stay neutral and finally, the issue was frozen up for the time being.