As farmers continued with their ‘rail roko’ agitation against the Central government, blaming apathy towards their demands, train services were disrupted for the second consecutive day in Punjab on Friday.
Farmers associated with 19 different farmer outfits on Thursday started a three-day ‘rail roko’ agitation to press for fulfilment of their demands including a law on assured Minimum Support Price (MSP) and loss of compensation in recent floods among others. A group of farmers associated with Bharti Kisan Union (Sidhupur) squatted on the Chandigarh-Ambala-Delhi national highway near Lalru in Punjab for a few hours, causing disruption to the vehicular movement. As farmers blocked the tracks, it affected railway services in some places resulting in disruption of long-distance and local train movement in the State.
Members of these outfits squatted and blocked railway tracks at twenty different places across different districts including Moga, Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur, Jalandhar, Tarn Taran, Sangrur, Patiala, Ferozepur, Bathinda, and Amritsar in the State, said Sarwan Singh Pandher, general secretary of the Punjab unit of Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee, which is one of the outfits participating in the agitation.
“The BJP-led government at the Centre has been ignoring farmers’ plight for long and hence we had to resort to the agitation. Our ‘rail roko’ agitation will continue till September 30, and tomorrow we will also squat on tracks in Haryana’s Ambala,” said Mr. Pandher.
He said if the demands are not met, then on October 23 and 24, farmers will burn effigies of the ruling government across the State.
The farmer outfits have been demanding the central government to announce a special package of ₹50,000 crore for the damage caused by floods in the states of north India, enacting a Minimum Support Price (MSP) guarantee law for purchasing all crops based on the Swaminathan Commission report, a complete loan waiver for farmers and labour, giving employment for 200 days per year under MNREGA, cancelling of police cases against made farmers during the year-long protest on Delhi borders among others.