Farmers to defy ban on protests with tractors on road on July 20

Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, July 16

Slamming the Congress government in the state for its anti-democracy stance in slapping a ban on public gatherings and also being in cahoots with the Narendra Modi-led Central Government as well as big corporate houses, the Bharti Kisan Union-Lakhowal (BKU) said today that farmers would hold a protest by parking their tractors on the road from Chahlan Pul to Kohara Chowk on July 20.

Addresing a joint meeting of the Lakhowal, Ludhiana-1 and Ludhiana-2 blocks of the BKU, its general secretary Harinder Singh Lakhowal alleged that the state government had imposed a ban on gatherings not as a preventive measure against Covid-19 but as a repressive step to curb agitation by farmers and workers.

He said as the farmers were being mobilised for the protest against three anti-farmer ordinances issued by the Centre, the state government had prohibited public gatherings and protests which indicated towards its connivance with the Centre and corporate houses.

“With new legislative measures (brought through ordinances), the Mandi Board in the state will be rendered redundant as traders and big business houses will enter the market and become free to exploit the farmers by purchasing crops at cheaper rates. Besides, a free market will encourage hoarding and force the farmers to sell food grain, vegetables and fruit at lower prices,” Lakhowal said.

Lakhowal said a dark future loomed large over the heads of farmers, not only in the state but across the nation also as the MSP regime was about to be scrapped. If they were not given remunerative prices, their debt-burden would increase and ultimately, their land holdings would be usurped by big businesses and corporate houses.

He cautioned the farmers that attempts were also under way to privatise the power generation sector through amendment in the Electricity Act. If power generation and distribution were given in private hands, people would have to pay more for electricity, free power for farmers and the poor as well as the subsidy would also be stopped creating more problems for the already stressed section of people, he added.