Punjab: Protesting farmers to march towards Delhi on Dec 6

Chandigarh: Slamming the Centre for not holding talks with them over their demands, which include a legal guarantee of MSP for crops, the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha on Monday announced that farmers will march towards Delhi on December 6.

Farmer leaders who took the decision here at a meeting said they were left with no option but to resume their march as the government has not reached out to them.

The protesting farmers have been camping at Shambhu and Khanauri border points between Punjab and Haryana since February 13, when their ‘Delhi Chalo’ march, spearheaded by the SKM (Non-Political) and the KMM, was stopped by security forces.

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Addressing the media here, KMM leader Sarwan Singh Pandher said after a long wait, they have decided to head towards Delhi. “We will move towards Delhi on December 6,” he said.

“We have been left with no option. We waited peacefully for the government (to reach out) for nine months. But now we will head towards Delhi,” he added.

The farmers will move towards the national capital in batches from the Shambhu border on the Ambala-New Delhi national highway.

Tejveer Singh of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Shaheed Bhagat Singh) said they have been camping at the two border points for 280 days and the Centre has not held any talks with them since February 18.

A panel of Union ministers Piyush Goyal, Nityanand Rai and Arjun Munda (not a minister in the new government) held talks with farmer representatives on February 18. Farmers had then rejected the Centre’s proposal that government agencies buy pulses, maize and cotton crops at MSP for five years.

Last week, the farmers announced that they would intensify their agitation and start a fast unto death from November 26.

On Monday, farmer leaders said if the government does not hold talks with the farmers in the meantime, then they will resume their march from Shambhu, they said.

SKM leader Guramneet Singh Mangat said farmers will march towards Delhi by foot on December 6, but added that the road is heavily barricaded by security forces.

They will also show black flags to Punjab BJP leaders after November 26, farmer leaders said.

Protesting farmers had earlier attempted to march towards Delhi on February 13 and February 21 but they were stopped by security forces deployed at the border points.

On February 21, young Punjab farmer Shubhkaran Singh died during clashes at Khanauri border when farmers tried to march towards Delhi. Teargas shells had also been lobbed by the security forces when protesting farmers tried to march towards the barricades.

Multi-layered barricades had been put up at the two border points at Shambhu and Khanauri where protesting farmers have been camping since February 13.

The Supreme Court, while hearing a Haryana government’s plea in September, had formed a committee headed by former Punjab and Haryana High Court judge Justice Nawab Singh to amicably resolve the grievances of protesting farmers.

The committee also comprises retired IPS officer B S Sandhu, agriculture expert Devinder Sharma, professor Ranjit Singh Ghuman and Dr Sukhpal Singh, agricultural economist from the Punjab Agricultural University.

The Haryana government had moved the apex court, challenging the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s July order, asking it to remove within a week the barricades erected at the Shambhu border near Ambala.

Besides a legal guarantee of minimum support price (MSP) for crops, the farmers are demanding a farm debt waiver, pension for farmers and farm labourers, electricity tariffs are not hiked, withdrawal of police cases against protesters, “justice” for the victims of the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence, reinstatement of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, and that compensation is given to the families of farmers who died during a previous agitation in 2020-21.