Farm workers hold protest in front of minister's house over land pooling

On a call given by the joint front of Rural and Farm Workers' Organisations, a protest was held for more than two hours in front of Cabinet Minister Mohinder Bhagat's house in Urban Estate, Phase-2, here today.

Earlier, hundreds of workers from Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and villages of Jalandhar district gathered near Geeta Mandir and held a rally. Later, they held a demonstration and reached the protest site in front of the minister's house and raised slogans.

The minister came out among the protesters and accepted a memorandum from them.

The minister assured the leaders and labourers to arrange a meeting of theirs with the Chief Minister to resolve their demands.

Labour leader Kashmir Singh Ghuggshore said the protest was held in front of the minister's house with demands such as cancelling the land pooling policy, guarantee of permanent employment, giving Rs 1000 per month to women as per election promise, increasing the amount of pension, giving one-third of the panchayat land to Dalit labourers, giving plots to the homeless and needy, distributing the excess lands under the land demarcation law to landless labourers and farmers, loan waiver and restoration of the right to organise and struggle.

Leader of the Pendu Mazdoor Union Punjab Tarsem Peter, president of the Dehati Mazdoor Sabha Darshan Nahar, state general secretary of the Kul Hind Khet Mazdoor Union Gurmesh Singh, finance secretary of the Punjab Khet Mazdoor Union Harmesh Malri, and state leader of the Punjab Khet Mazdoor Sabha Gian Saidpuri alleged that the Bhagwant Mann government has also proven to be the anti-labour and pro-corporate government, supporting landlords and rural overlords.

They said instead of implementing the legitimate demands of the labourers, the government is implementing anti-labour policies. They alleged that while the Centre had robbed the rights of the workers by making the labour code, the Mann government had also betrayed the workers by increasing the working hours. They said the AAP government was violating the democratic rights of the people by intensifying police repression on struggling labourers and farmers.