Farmers Movement Archive

Kisan Sansad today, Sanyukt Kisan Morcha wants no repeat of Jan 26

BATHINDA/JIND: A day before the Kisan Sansad “parallel Parliament” of the farmers, the Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) on Wednesday decided to send the first batch of 200 to Jantar Mantar at 9am from Singhu on Haryana-Delhi border. The protest starts at 11am. Five members from each farmer union, who carry identity cards, will commandeer the jatha. Four buses will carry 50 handpicked protesters each. Delhi Police has given the farmers a verbal permission for staying at Jantar Mantar till 5pm, but under watch. After what happened on January 26 during the tractor parade, ‘josh mein hosh’ (cool head in excitement) is the buzzword for this second storming of Delhi. Keen to maintain discipline, the SKM has instructed the famers to behave like the MPs while outside Parliament. “As our activities will be under watch, we must not do anything unparliamentary,” farmer unionist Balbir Singh Rajewal told them on Wednesday evening. The morcha claimed that the forces that had ruined the January 26 protest were active again. Rajewal said: “The farmers fight for their rights but they don’t believe in violence. Our people’s whip to the MPs is working well and many in Parliament looks to our protest. We’ll show the government that we want nothing more than the repeal those farm laws and a legal guarantee of MSP (minimum support price).” He said a shamiana will be pitched at the protest site and chairs put up for the protesters, and “this farmers’ parliament will adjourn in the evening if not stopped by the cops”. Haryana farmers to have decided to make it mandatory to submit Aadhaar card and a photo with committee concerned to go to Delhi from July 22. Farmers will also travel in a group of five persons to press their demands, and they will comply with the rules made by farmer leaders. Farmers said groups of five farmers from Haryana’s different toll plazas will take part in the agitation at Jantar Mantar and local committees will ensure their presence and identification. Azad Singh Palwan, Jind district BKU (Charuni) chief, said “We have asked every farmer to carry their identity card along with them while travelling for Delhi. Only 200 farmers will march and not thousands, and all will have identification.” Meanwhile, SKM said Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar’s reply in Parliament that the government has made various efforts to end the farm protests was a sheer lie. The Union and Haryana governments had only tried to end the farm protests by slapping false cases on farmers, putting them behind bars, cutting off supplies to protest sites and putting up barricades around the morchas, it said. The government has done its best to malign the farmers, it added. The government did not even articulate the demands of the farmers’ movement accurately on the floor of parliament despite having formal talks with the farmers about it, SKM representatives said. Although, farmers have said they seek a legal guarantee on minimum support price for all agricultural produce, declared with a C2+50% formula, the government chose to present this demand as an issue related to procurement of wheat and paddy. They said it is shameful and regrettable that the government is saying that it does not have any record of the number of agitating farmers who have died during the movement. Tomar, his colleagues and officials had stood up in silence to pay respects to those died, in one of the meetings in December 2020. and the farmers has been putting out such information through an open blog site. Tomar also stated that the government is always open to discussion with farmers’ unions. But SKM representatives denied this saying if this was the case, why no talks were held in the last six months .

The Times of India

2021-07-22

Chandigarh