5 Trinamool Congress MPs meet farmers at Singhu border, Mamata speaks to protesters again

The five Trinamool MPs are Derek O'Brien, Satabdi Roy, Prasun Banerjee, Pratima Mondal and Md Nadimul Haque.

Many farmers in small groups had an interaction on the telephone with West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee, who assured them of her solidarity with their movement, on the farmers' day.

Some farmers, who are protesting by camping in the Delhi-Haryana border or Singhu border for 28 days now, also requested her to visit the dharna site.

Earlier on Nov 4, Banerjee spoke with the farmers via telephone and sent O'Brien to the Singhu border.

Trinamool Congress MPs with the protesting farmers (Image Credit: AITC)

Though the government held several rounds of talks with the farmers' representatives but gave no breakthrough as the protesters have cleared they would accept nothing short of the repeal of the laws.

One of the Centre's new farm laws will now allow farmers to sell their produce to institutional buyers beyond the regulated wholesale market. 

Though the middlemen in the wholesale markets are often accused of usurping the farmers in the earlier agricultural system, the protesters, backed by several opposition parties, fear they will have little bargaining power while selling their produce to institutional buyers, running the risk of getting exploited with the gradual destabilising of the mundies.