After Midnight March In Delhi, Farmers Call Off Protest

After midnight march in Delhi, farmers have called off their protest after reaching Kisan Ghat, the memorial of Chaudhary Charan Singh.

They were allowed to enter the national capital around midnight after Police unsealed the border between Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. “The farmers remained unfazed despite all the hardships. We have been marching for 12 days now, farmers are tired as well. We will continue to demand our rights to the government but for now we are ending the march,” Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) chief Naresh Tikait was quoted by news agency IANS as saying.

The farmers have started returning since early morning. Traffic restriction put across Delhi has also been lifted after the protest was called. However, schools will remain closed in Ghaziabad, which was ordered yesterday because of the protest.

On Tuesday, the farmers were stopped from entering the national capital which resulted in a violent clash with the Police.

They have been protesting as part of their “Kisan Kranti Padyatra” to demand loan waiver, subsidised electricity and fuel, pension for farmers above 60 and implementation of recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission.

The march began from Tikait Ghat in Haridwar on September 23. Farmers from places as far as Gonda, Basti and Gorakhpur in eastern Uttar Pradesh and the sugarcane belt of western UP joined the agitation.

At least 30,000 farmers walked and travelled in tractors to Delhi as a part of the march. After police stopped them at Delhi border, angry farmers tried to break the barriers and raised slogans forcing the Police to use batons, tear gas shells and water cannons to disperse them. Several protesters and Policemen were injured in the clash. Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, told news agency ANI that farmer leaders who met Home Minister Rajnath Singh and discussed their demands have reached an agreement on a majority of the issues. But the members of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), which organised the farmers’ march, say that they haven’t reached an agreement on the full implementation of the Swaminathan report regarding the minimum selling price (MSP), and their demand of one-time complete loan waiver.