Farmers Movement Archive

Covid norms: Farm bodies take it easy

BATHINDA: Despite a steep rise in Covid-19 cases in Punjab with the new strain coming to the fore, the protesting farmer organisations have still not decided to direct the protesters to start wearing masks and maintain social distancing as a precaution. Farm organisations feel that any such move could be counterproductive for the sustained struggle as the protesting farmers could be scared away and may start staying away from the larger gatherings. The largest farm organization, BKU (Ekta Ugrahan), has categorically rejected the appeals to make farmers wear mask and maintain physical distancing. It says till now, more than 300 protesting farmers have lost their lives during the ongoing struggle and the postmortem has not revealed any case of Covid among the casualties. Even though organisation president Joginder Singh Ugrahgan has tested positive, BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) said he had some health issues after getting exhausted from his unending schedules of addressing gatherings at Tikri and various other kisan mahapanchayats. This despite the fact that thousands of farmers are assembling at protest sites without any caution. “Though we do not reject Covid, we are not going to adopt the precautions suggested by governments. These are only to scare away us and defeat our strong struggle. If we ask our activists to wear masks, they will scare away which governments in the state and Centre want. We will not accept this. And if governments are so concerned, then why didn’t they make the norms must for the political rallies presently going on in five states. Is Corona not for them?” said BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) general secretary Sukhdev Singh Kokri. (BKU Dakonda) general secretary Jagmohan Singh said so far, they have not felt any such need to ask the protesters to compulsorily wear masks as farm organisations don’t want protesters to fear from it. “But if anyone want to wear mask, he could,” he added. “We have not come across any fear of Coronavirus in the minds of protesters, so there is need to panic over it,” said BKU (Krantikari) president Surjit Singh Phool.

The Times of India

2021-03-25

Chandigarh