PADDY PROCUREMENT

Food Corporation of India (FCI) along with state agencies.

The decision to revoke the earlier order was taken at a meeting of Union minister of state Ashwini Kumar Choubey and, Khattar and Haryana agriculture minister JP Dalal in Delhi. “The procurement (of kharif crops) will start from tomorrow in Haryana as well as Punjab,” Choubey told reporters after the meeting.

In Karnal, the Haryana Police used water cannons to disperse protesting farmers as they tried to gherao Khattar’s residence, while in Shahabad and Panchkula, the agitators used tractors to break police barricades to reach houses of Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, including Haryana minister Sandeep Singh, officials said.

The situation became tense in a few places in Haryana and Punjab after clashes broke out between farmers and the police.

In several places in these states, farmers after reaching residences of ministers, legislators and MPS, parked their food grain-laden trolleys in front of their houses.

In Punjab, farmers gathered outside the residences of several Congress legislators, including state assembly speaker Rana KP Singh in Rupnagar and MLA Harjot Kamal in Moga.

While the BJP, in alliance with the Jannayak Janata Party, is in power in Haryana, the Congress is the ruling party in Punjab, and both state governments have urged the Centre to ensure farmers do not face any problem in paddy procurement.

Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ask government agencies to begin paddy procurement.

The police said that there was no report of any “major” untoward incident from the two states. Police personnel were deployed in strength to maintain law and order, the officials said.

Saturday’s protests have come on the back of a monthslong stir by hundreds of thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, against the Centre’s three farm laws. Several rounds of discussions between the farm unions and the government have failed to resolve the impasse.

The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of farmer unions which is also spearheading the agitation against the farm laws, gave a call on Friday for holding protests outside the residences of legislators in Punjab and Haryana to register their protest.

After the Centre issued fresh orders, SKM called off that protest. “This is a victory of farmers’ united struggle,” the farmers’ body said in a statement.

Haryana minister Anil Vij targeted the farmers, and said: “Farmers’ agitation is getting violent day by day. Violent movement in the country of Mahatma Gandhi cannot be allowed…”

Paddy crop, though in small quantity, started arriving in mandis (markets) especially in border areas of Punjab, farmers said later in the day.