Don’t turn people against you by blocking roads, CM Bhagwant Mann tells protesting farmers

PTI

Chandigarh, November 22

A day after farmers blocked a stretch of the national highway in Jalandhar, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Wednesday asked the farm unions not to turn people against themselves by blocking roads.

Farmers under the banner of Samyukt Kisan Morcha blocked the Jalandhar-Phagwara section of the Jalandhar-New Delhi National Highway near Dhanowali village for an indefinite period on Tuesday, seeking a hike in sugarcane prices.

Mann said if the farmers do not shun the practice of blocking roads every time their demands are not met, a day will come when people will stop sympathising with them.

“My request to the farmer unions is not to turn common people against you by blocking roads for every issue. For holding talks with the government, there is Punjab Bhawan in Chandigarh, the Secretariat, the office of the agriculture minister and my office and residence but not the roads. If this attitude remains, then the day is not far when you will not find people for ‘dharnas’... understand the feelings of people,” said Mann in a post on X in Punjabi.

The ongoing farmers’ protest has affected the movement of vehicles from Jammu, Pathankot, and Amritsar via Jalandhar towards Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Nawanshahr and Delhi.

With police diverting traffic towards alternative roads, the commuters had a harrowing time.

The protesting farmers put up a tent in the middle of the road and spent the night on the highway demanding an increase in the assured prices of sugarcane from Rs 380 per quintal to Rs 450 per quintal.

The protesters said they will not end the protest till their demand is met.

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