THE Government’s ninth round of negotiations with protesting farmer unions will take place as scheduled on Friday and the Centre is hopeful of positive discussions, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said on Thursday. “The Government is ready to hold talks with farmers’ leaders with an open mind,” Tomar told reporters here.

 

The farmer unions have been maintaining that they were ready to attend the scheduled talks with the Government, even as they have said they do not want to appear before the court-appointed panel and have also questioned its composition. Earlier in the day, Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) President Bhupinder Singh Mann said he is recusing himself from the four-member committee.

 

“I am recusing myself from the committee and I will always stand with my farmers and Punjab,” Mann added. The SC-appointed panel on farm laws is likely to hold its first meeting on January 19 at Pusa campus here, one of its members Anil Ghanwat said on Thursday and asserted the committee will have no ‘ego or prestige issue’ if it has to go to farmers’ protest sites to talk to them. Ghanwat is the President of the Maharashtra-based farm organisation Shetkari Sanghatana.