Farm outfit lifts rail blockade in Punjab, to target BJP leaders & corporates

BATHINDA: Dissociating itself from the other farmer organisations over continuing protests, BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) on Tuesday lifted its blockade of railway tracks at two places. It has decided to increase protests at the residences of BJP leaders or places associated with corporate houses instead of the railway tracks. However, it will go ahead with talks with the Union government on Wednesday.
BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) general secretary Sukhdev Singh Kokri Kalan told TOI, “Initially we had held protests at four places on railway tracks — at Dhablan (Patiala), Sunam (Sangrur), Budhlada (Mansa) and Gidderbaha (Muktsar). However, we had ended the protest at Gidderbaha on October 8 and at Dhablan on October 11. Today, we lifted protests from two remaining railway tracks at Sunam and Budhlada and have increased protests at other places, including at the houses of BJP leaders. We had started protests at 38 places on October 1, in association with other farm organisations, but on October 13, we increased protests to 57 places. These included protests at 11 places associated with BJP leaders, 10 toll plazas, 23 Reliance group petrol pumps, seven Essar petrol pumps, four shopping malls, one silo of Adani group at Dagru village near Moga and a thermal plant Talwandi Sabo Power Limited belonging to Vedanta Group at Banawali village in Mansa district. In all, we have been holding protests in 13 districts of the state.”
He said thay will go for talks with the Union government, to put forth the demands of farmers, “but our protests will continue”.