Protesting farmers to start marching towards Delhi from today

Protesting farmers to start marching towards Delhi from today
Chandigarh: Farmers’ organisations will start marching towards Delhi on Wednesday to press their various demands to the central government.

Their various demands to the central government include a legal guarantee on Minimum Support Price (MSP) for crops, pension for farmers and farm labourers, farm debt waiver, and no hike in electricity tariffs. “Tomorrow, on March 6, farmers from all over India will march peacefully towards Jantar Mantar in Delhi,” farmer leader Tejveer Singh told reporters at Shambhu Border on Tuesday. He said that farmers from various states made their arrangements for marching to the national capital.

“Farmers from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar have made all preparations to move to Delhi for the march,” Singh added. Meanwhile, Delhi Police have beefed up the security at the Tikri, Singhu and Ghazipur borders, and railway and metro stations and bus stands in view of the farmers’ protest march.

The farmers also called for a four-hour countrywide ‘rail roko’ on March 10. The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) national body has given a call for the Mahapanchayat in Delhi on March 14 to highlight issues of a legal guarantee of MSP, against the electricity amendment bill, freedom from debt, old age pension, rolling back of labour codes, and other pending issues.

Giving a call to march to Delhi, the farmers have been camping at multiple points in areas bordering the national capital since February 13 along with their tractors, mini-vans, and pickup trucks, demanding, among others, a law guaranteeing MSP (minimum support price) and withdrawal of police cases against farmers during earlier protests.

During the last round of talks, which ended past midnight on February 18, the panel of three Union ministers made an offer to buy five crops — moong dal, urad dal, tur dal, maize, and cotton — from farmers at MSP for five years through central agencies. However, the protesting farmers turned down the demand and returned to their protest sites.