Farmers Movement Archive

GA allies led by RJD hold dharna to back farmers’ stir

PATNA: The leaders of the RJD-led Grand Alliance partners in the state sat on a dharna in Patna and also blocked roads at all district headquarters in the state to express solidarity with the farmers agitating in Delhi against the three farm laws passed by the Centre, besides demanding assured purchase of their agriculture produce at the minimum support price (MSP) rates. The leader of opposition in the state assembly, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, called the talks being held by the Centre with the representatives of farmers as a “drama”, adding the Centre should have held consultations with the farmers before getting the farm bills passed through Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. “The farm laws enacted by the Centre are unilateral since no consultations and exchange of views, opinions and farmers’ concerns were made before introducing the Bills for passage in the two Houses,” Tejashwi said. He added that the Centre, after privatizing the public sector undertakings, has now decided to hand over the farm sector to the private houses by way of contract farming with no guarantee of the purchase of the farm produce at the MSP rates. “If the three farm laws are really good and also in the interest of the farmers, then why doesn’t the Centre want to ensure that the farm produce is purchased from the farmers at the MSP rates?” Tejashwi asked, adding the Centre has been following anti-farmer and anti-labour policies for the last six years and the Nitish Kumar government in the state for the last 15 years. Incidentally, a confusion prevailed outside Gandhi Maidan on Saturday morning, when leaders and workers of RJD, Congress, CPI and CPM arrived at the Gate Number 4 to enter Gandhi Maidan and sit on dharna in front of the statue of Mahatma Gandhi inside the maidan. However, the Patna district administration had not permitted it. Tejashwi had on Friday announced the dharna programme. The CPI(ML) leaders did not participate in the Patna dharna, as they were not informed about it, it is learnt. Among the participants in the dharna programme who addressed the meet were Congress state president Madan Mohan Jha, Congress legislature party leader Ajit Sharma, CPI state secretary Ram Naresh Pandey and its secretariat committee member Ram Babu Kumar, and senior CPM functionaries. That apart, the CPI(ML) organized road blockades for a couple of hours in the morning across the state, as the reports reaching here from Ara and Madhubani said. At Ara, the CPI(ML) workers blocked the Ara-Patna bypass road near the bus stand for two hours from 8 am to 10 am, as the party’s district secretary Dhiraj Pritam told this newspaper. The Party’s Tarari MLA Sudama Prasad also addressed the meeting. Similarly, the road was also blocked at Madhubani by the members of the CPI(ML), All India Kisan Mahasabha and Khet Gramin Majdoor Sangh. Meanwhile, the CPI(ML), CPI, CPM, Forward Bloc and Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) state secretaries on Saturday decided to actively support the Bharat bandh call for December 8 given by the core group of the agitating farmers in Delhi. (With inputs from Praveen in Ara and C S Jha ‘Azad’ in Saharsa)

The Times of India

2020-12-06

Patna