New Delhi/Dec,14: As protests escalate against the government’s new agricultural laws, several leaders of farmers’ bodies – backing thousands of protesters camping near Delhi borders since late November – are holding a nine-hour long hunger strike today. They’ve planned demonstrations across the country. This is the second nationwide protest in less than a week after highways were blocked last Tuesday as a part of countrywide shutdown call backed by opposition parties and trade unions. Despite several round of talks with the government, farmers have said the agitation will continue till the new laws are scrapped.
Thirty-three farmer leaders are holding a hunger strike at Singhu on Haryana-Delhi border, one of the key protest sites. The hunger strike is a part of the farmers’ plan to intensify their agitation.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Sunday he will fast along with farmers. “Fasting is pure. Wherever you are, please fast for our farmer brothers. Pray to god that they succeed as they struggle. In the end, they’ll win for sure,” Mr Kejriwal tweeted this morning in Hindi.
Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Sunday accused the opposition of running a propaganda against the new farm laws. “When reforms are undertaken it will benefit farmers in the long run. But in the short run, some may face difficulty. We know we can achieve no gain without difficulties,” the Union Minister, who has held several rounds of negotiations with farmers’ representatives, was quoted as saying in a media report .
Protesters continue to partially block Delhi-Jaipur highway after farmers from Rajasthan and Haryana began their march to the national capital on Sunday amid huge police presence. Many of them were stopped in Haryana’s Rewari, 100 km from Delhi . One farmer leader is fasting today at the protest site.
The Bharatiya Kisan Union (Bhanu) faction — one of the key organisations leading the farmers’ protest — saw discord on Sunday over the opening of a highway from Noida to Delhi, a day after Thakur Bhanu Pratap Singh, the president of the organization, met with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. The UP unit chief of the BKU (Bhanu) Yogesh Pratap, who was holding a sit-in protest on the Chilla road for the last 12 days, disagreed with the decision.
The farmers’ call to intensify the agitation came on Saturday, hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured: “Reforms will help draw investment in agriculture and benefit farmers.”
The government has tried to engage the representatives with even Union Home Minister Amit Shah stepping in for talks, offering changes to the laws and written assurances, but the demonstrators have held their ground.
Voted through parliament in September with little debate, the laws only give an additional option to farmers to sell their produce, the government argues, but small farmers fear that once big corporate players enter the market, they will lose guarantees on prices.
A petition was filed on Friday in the Supreme Court by the Bharatiya Kisan Union that sought repeal of the laws. The top court has already issued notices to the centre on a batch of petitions challenging the laws.
Several opposition parties, including the Congress, have been critcising the government over the handling of the protests. Thousands of farmers have been camping on the outskirts of Delhi since late November. Many of them braved a brutal police crackdown last month in BJP-ruled Haryana before being allowed into Delhi.
