Unease in SKM as crowds start thinning at Singhu

Blurb: Farmers blame ‘mahapanchayats’, harvest season

Mukesh Tandon

Tribune News Service

Sonepat, March 27

The crowds gathered at Singhu, the epicentre of the farmers’ protest against the central farm laws, have been thinning over the past several days, leading to concern among the Sanyukt Kisan Morcha leaders who have now decided to call off ‘mahapanchayats’ in other states and re-focus on the Delhi borders.

Intelligence sources said three to five protesters were putting up in each tractor-trailer compared to 10-15 earlier. A similar situation emerged after the January 26 violence, but SKM leader Rakesh Tikait’s tears had drawn crowds overnight from parts of Haryana and UP.

The decline in numbers could mainly be due to senior leaders busy holding ‘kisan mahapanchayats’ across Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, MP, UP and other states and farmers returning for harvest season, said Gurmukh Singh of Hoshiarpur.

Besides, the March 26 Bharat bandh was the only major event organised by the SKM in recent past, he said. “The farm leaders must organise more such protests to pressure the government to accept our demands,” he said.

A farmer leader said they had decided to cancel all ‘mahapanchayats’ in other states and would concentrate only on mobilising more protesters at Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur.

SKM leader Harinder Singh Lakhowal claimed the crowds were thinning temporarily as farmers had been maintaining a “protest roaster” at village level. “If some farmers have moved their tractor-trailers back, ‘pucca’ huts have come up as a replacement,” said Lakhowal.