Commerce & Industry Minister Anand Sharma’s attempt on Tuesday to get the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) on board ahead of the September 3-4 informal meeting of trade ministers of 36 countries in New Delhi remained inconclusive as the union, which plans to hold a “panchayat” (demonstration) at Jantar Mantar on Thursday, re-iterated its opposition to the inclusion of agriculture in the stalled Doha Round of trade negotiations.

While the meeting had obvious political overtones given the minister’s decision to call BKU leaders at the Congress headquarters for talks, the same has caused some unease in a section of the party, which does not want to associate itself with the BKU in any manner. Congress MP Parvez Hashmi was also present at the meeting.

According to Congress leaders, the presence of Mahendra Singh Tikait and other BKU leaders at the party headquarters was meant to send out a message to farmers in UP, where the Congress is planning to launch a series of agitation programmes concerning farmers’ issues. Given the fact that Tikait and later UP Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi were both arrested at different points of time by the BSP regime for allegedly making derogatory and casteist remarks against Chief Minister Mayawati, the Congress hopes to reach out to Tikait supporters and make a common cause with them, said the sources.

“The flipside, however, is that we could end up getting projected as sharing the same platform with the BKU on the issue of Doha Round of talks. India has had a consistent stand on this and such issues should be better left to the government to handle,” said a senior Congress leader.

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