SKM Says BJP’s ‘Tiranga Yatra’ A Plan To Instigate, Defame Farmers

FILE PHOTO: People shout anti-farmer slogans and wave national flags as police officers try to stop them, at the site of a protest against farm laws at Singhu border near New Delhi

The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) on Sunday appealed to Haryana farmers not to oppose the ‘Tiranga Yatra’ of the state’s BJP unit, claiming that it was a “devious plan” to instigate and defame farmers.

The umbrella body of 40 farmer unions said in a statement that the other programmes of boycott and flag protests against the BJP and the JJP will continue.

“The proposed ‘Tiranga Yatra’ of the BJP’s Haryana unit is mainly to instigate farmers and defame them. SKM urged farmers to see through this devious plan of BJP, and to not let this dirty tactic, under the guise of the national flag, succeed,” it said in the statement.

The Haryana BJP’s two-week-long ‘Tiranga Yatra’ ahead of the 75th Independence Day began from Bhiwani on Sunday, with party’s state chief O P Dhankar claiming that thousands of farmers also joined the event.

Dhankar, along with state Agriculture Minister J P Dalal, rode a tractor with the tricolour fixed on both sides during the ‘yatra’, which was taken out on a 30-km-long route from Bahal to Loharu.

Meanwhile, the SKM also said the ‘Kisan Sansad’ will continue at Jantar Mantar in Delhi on Monday.

“The ‘Kisan Sansad’, despite the site of the ‘Sansad’ in Jantar Mantar being flooded with water, is functioning in a disciplined manner, with detailed deliberations. In Chhattisgarh, a parallel ‘Kisan Sansad’ was run by the state Kisan Sabha on Friday, in solidarity with the Kisan Sansad near the Parliament,” it said.

The ‘Kisan Sansad’ is part of the latest strategy of the farmers who have been protesting against the Centre’s three contentious farm laws at multiple Delhi borders since November last year.

The farmers have expressed fear that the new laws will eliminate the Minimum Support Price system and leave them at the mercy of the big corporations.

Over 10 rounds of talks with the government, that has been projecting the laws as major agricultural reforms, have failed to break the deadlock between the two parties.

As part of these ‘Kisan Sansad’ sessions, 200 farmers from the protest sites participate in a mock Parliament session at Jantar Mantar during which issues concerning the farming community are discussed. PTI