Farmers to re-enter Delhi on March 13

Bathinda: Punjab’s farmer unions are ready once again to reach the national capital, this time to ask for legal guarantee of minimum support price (MSP) for all the crops to all the tillers. Five of them plan to enter Delhi on March 13.
They want to drop a memorandum at the Prime Minister’s office. Seeking appropriate security arrangements, the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Rajewal), All-India Kisan Federation, Kisan Sangharh Committee, BKU (Mansa), and Azad Kisan Sangharsh Committee have conveyed to Delhi’s deputy commissioner of police (DCP) that they plan to march from Gurdwara Bangla Sahib to Parliament before holding a rally at Jantar Mantar.
They had last stormed Delhi on January 26, 2021 for a tractor parade after occupying the national capital’s borders for more than a year. In July-August 2021, the farmers held days-long ‘Kisan Sansad’ parallel to the Parliament’s session inside Delhi. Farmer unionist Balbir Singh Rajewal said: “On the night of March 12, thousands of members of five farmer unions will reach Gurdwara Bangla Sahib to start a march from there on the next morning to highlight Punjab’s water crisis, long-standing water dispute with Haryana, chemical pollutants being released by the factories, and threat to the country’s federal structure.”
Farmer unionist Prem Singh Bhangu said: “We also want legal status for MSP and its fixation based on the M S Swaminathan formula of C2+50% along with assured market of all crops, including fruits and vegetables, total debt waiver for the farmers and farm workers, besides withdrawal of all the cases registered against them in Delhi, Punjab, and Haryana. The rally will be at Jantar Mantar. The farmers are well prepared.”
The Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), which led the yearlong Delhi agitation against three agri-marketing laws, asked for fulfilment of its pending demands. On March 13, it will burn effigies of the central government across Punjab in protest against the Central Bureau of Investigation’s raids on farmer unionists Harinder Singh Lakhowal and Satnam Singh Behru.