The farmers’ protest against the contentious farm laws got a new supporter on Sunday as Meghalaya Governor Satya Pal Malik said farmers should not go empty-handed from Delhi’s borders and that no atrocity should be committed against them. “During my last visit, I met both the Prime Minister and the Home Minister and requested them not to use force against the protesting farmers. Don’t fiddle with farmers,” he said.
In the matter of farmers, he said, he would go as far as possible. “It is because growing up, I have worked in the fields, I understand the pain of farmers,” he said at a felicitation programme in Baghpat.
Mr. Malik said he later told a journalist close to the Prime Minister that sending farmers back empty-handed would be imprudent. “First, they would not go and even if they returned, they would not forget the insult for 300 years. So, give them something. There is not much to be done. Just give the MSP legal recognition. The rest of it can be resolved easily. I am ready to negotiate.”
If it (the protest) was allowed to fester, he said, it would have repercussions. “I know [the temperament of] Sikhs. Don’t use force against them. Even on the day [Rakesh] Tikait was about to be arrested, I intervened.”
He reminded that after Operation Blue Star, “Mrs. Gandhi organised a month-long mahamrityunjaya yagna. She could sense..., ” he said.
‘Can’t keep quiet’
Earlier, Mr. Malik said as a Governor he was not expected to make statements, but on certain issues, he could not keep quiet.
Mr. Malik, who hails from Hiswada village of the district, said he was known to speak candidly and sometimes suffered because of it.
