Farmers Movement Archive

Harvest on, farmers adopt new ways to sustain stir

Jind: With wheat-harvesting season almost here, farmers protesting against the three contentious farm laws in Haryana and on the borders of Delhi have adopted new ways to sustain the agitation. Farmers from Punjab, who make a short halt at a langar site in Jhanjh Khurd village of Jind district, claimed that they have hired personal vehicles which ferry farmers from village to Delhi borders and back. They said they had decided on this as diesel prices had increased and tractors took time. They said this was helping them waste less time on travel. Jaswant Singh of Barnala district (65) said the Centre should forget that farmers would be busy in wheat harvesting, as teams had been formed at village level to ensure their presence on Delhi borders in shifts. When a team goes to Delhi to stay for a week, the other team manages their work in the village and even helps in the fields of those have been camping on borders. Thereafter, the next team moves,” he added. Gurpreet Singh of Patiala district, who had stopped at the Jhanjh Khurd langar site, said paddy sowing would also not affect their presence at the protests. “Now the fight has reached a do-or-die sitiation; farmers will back step down,” he added. In Jind district, protesters have set shifts for groups of 15 villages to protest at each of the two toll plazas in the district at a time. This means that nearly 30 villages of the total 306 in the district would be on protest duty at Baddowal and Khatkar toll plazas at a given time. . BKU district president Azad Singh Palwa said they were making the arrangements to ensure participation even in harvesting season..

The Times of India

2021-02-22

Chandigarh