A month after six farmers were shot dead by police in Madhya Pradesh’s Mandsaur district, leaders from political parties and farmers have joined hands to launch the second edition of their protests, demanding action from Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan.
Chouhan had earlier gone on a fast vowing to bring the protests to a peaceful end. However, the farmers allege that the promises made by him were not fulfilled. As a mark of protest, leaders from various non-BJP political parties, farmers’ bodies and activists launched the ‘Kisan Karz Mukti Yatra’.
As part of their protest, the group was to march towards Piplya Mandi, where the six farmers were shot last month. However, the police stopped the crowd about 1 km away from the village, arresting over 400 people.
Several leaders including Yogendra Yadav and VM Singh were arrested by the police.
Activists Medha Patkar, Raju Sheti and Subhashini Ali were also among those arrested.
.jpeg?auto=format%2Ccompress&fmt=webp&width=720)
According to a Firstpost report, the farmers’ rally was to have happened in four phases. The first phase is scheduled to begin on 7 July, where the rally was to visit the states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and finally culminate at Jantar Mantar in Delhi on 18 July.
The Madhya Pradesh government had earlier instructed the collectors of various districts to disallow farmers’ from holding the protest rally. The police had also asked the farmers from Mandsaur, Neemuch, Ratlam and Ujjain to abstain from participating in the rally.
Swaraj India Party’s Yogendra Yadav earlier penned an open letter on Wednesday to the state government, questioning its decision.
Why does your democratically elected government functioning within the constitutional framework deny permission to farmers to gather peacefully and pay tribute to martyrs?Yadav in his letter to the government
In addition, a union of all the farmers’ bodies have come together to present a set of demands to the Centre and the Madhya Pradesh government. These include farm loan waivers, fixed price for produce and a probe into the onion scam in the state, among others.
(with inputs from Akanksha Kumar)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)