Farmers had started their march on Delhi on February 13
New Delhi:
The farmers will resume their protest tomorrow after they turned down the government’s 5-year proposal to buy three types of pulses, maize, and cotton at the old MSP.
Iron shields, jute sacks are stocked at Shambhu border – between Punjab and Haryana – to face the tear gas shells as Delhi prepares for a showdown again.
Media people have been issued ID cards so that “unwanted people” don’t join the protest pretending as journalists.
Farmers said they will resume their march towards Delhi in a peaceful manner. “We want to appeal to the government to not use force against us. We want to protest peacefully,” farmers told NDTV.
Farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher yesterday said that the proposal is not acceptable to them. “The government made the proposal (on Sunday night) and we have studied it. It doesn’t make sense for the MSP to apply to only two or three crops and for the other farmers to be left to fend for themselves,” he said.
The Samyukt Kisan Morcha – an umbrella organisation of farmer unions not directly linked to those leading this round of protests – also criticised the proposal as “diverting from the focal demands of farmers”.
Farmers, backed by about 200 unions, had started their march on Delhi on February 13. Tear gas was fired and water cannons were used against the protesters, who had gathered at the Shambhu border, and smoke canisters were also dropped from drones.
The demand for a law on MSP, which is meant to protect farmers from the vagaries of the market, is the core issue for the protesting farmers. They are also demanding a loan waiver, the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations, pension for farmers and farm labourers, withdrawal of police cases filed against them during the earlier protest and justice for farmers killed in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri.