POLICE FIRE TEAR GAS ON INDIAN FARMERS
Protesters try to resume march to Delhi after talks on higher crop prices fall through
INDIAN police fired tear gas yesterday to scatter thousands of protesting farmers as they sought to resume a march to New Delhi after rejecting a government offer on prices for their produce, while authorities offered fresh negotiations.
Fleeing the stinging gas and smoke, the farmers, some wearing medical masks, ran into fields around their gathering point on a highway about 200km north of New Delhi.
This came as the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a new offer to resume talks on the farmers’ demands.
Agriculture Minister Arjun Munda urged farmers to resolve their grievances through the talks.
“After the fourth round, the government is ready to discuss all the issues” such as guaranteed prices for the farmers’ crops, he said on X, as the march resumed.
Farmers’ leaders discussed the offer after the police action stopped the march, media said.
On Monday, farmers’ groups rejected the government’s proposal for five-year contracts and guaranteed support prices for produce such as corn, cotton and pulses.
The farmers, mostly from the northern state of Punjab, have been demanding higher prices backed by law for their crops. They form an influential bloc of voters Modi cannot afford to anger ahead of a general election due by May.
Earlier, the farmers, accompanied by cranes and excavators, began marching from the spot where authorities had stopped them by erecting barricades on the border of Punjab state with Haryana, blocking a key highway.
Police in riot gear lined both sides of the highway as the farmers gathered amid morning fog and waved flags of their unions.
About 10,000 people gathered yesterday, along with 1,200 tractors and wagons in Shambhu on the state border, police said on X.
Security was also stepped up at entry points to New Delhi, with police in riot gear manning barricades, slowing traffic entering the city of more than 20 million.
Two key entry points north of the city have been shut for days.
Sunday’s government proposal of minimum support prices to farmers who diversify their crops to grow cotton, pigeon peas, black matpe, red lentils and corn was rejected by protesters, who wanted additional grains covered.
Similar protests two years ago, when farmers camped for two months at the border of New Delhi, forced Modi’s government to repeal a set of farm laws.