Farmers gherao residences of 9 MLAs

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, December 12

A day after farmers’ unions associated with the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) took out a protest march to submit a memorandum to Lok Sabha members, members of the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee (KMSC) gheraoed residences of MLAs.

Association leader Sarwan Singh said protests were held outside the residences of nine MLAs in the district. He said besides the Centre, the state government had also been indifferent towards the plight of the farmers as most of the demands concerning the sector were directly under the purview of the state government.

Farmers, under the banner of the KMSC, have been staging a protest outside the Deputy Commissioner’s office for the past two weeks. The protesters had also blocked the entrance to the DC’s office this week. While each of these organisations claim to be pursuing the agenda of welfare of farming community, the frequency of the programmes being held in the city is causing inconvenience to the residents.

A farmer leader on the condition of anonymity said: “While the unions have same demands and agendas, they also are in a race to expand their support base and exert their dominance.” He said talks about holding joint programmes on common demands had often been held but the associations were adamant on preserving their individual identities.

The KMSC is protesting to get the recent amendments to the village common land rules repealed, apart from demanding compensation for crop loss, justice for Lakhimpur Kheri incident, jobs for kin of farmers who died during the agitation at Delhi borders, application of minimum support price on all crops, MSP fixation on the basis of Swaminathan formula and repeal of the Electricity Amendment Bill.

Various organisations which are not associated with the SKM often stage protests in the area. Last month, a protest by BKU Ekta Ugrahan, which too is an independent organisation and not associated with the SKM, held a protest at the Bhandari Bridge which caused a lot of inconvenience to the commuters.