Farmers leave borders but not protest
NEW DELHI: A day after an unsuccessful bid to march to the Parliament, protesting farmers were Friday back outside offices of local authorities in Noida and Greater Noida for a sit-in.
The protestors, led by the Bharatiya Kisan Parishad (BKP), said they will continue the protest as before and once again attempt to march to Delhi after the Budget Session of Parliament is over.
On Thursday, thousands of villagers, including women and the elderly, joined the march to press for their demands for hiked compensation and developed plots in lieu of their land acquired by local development authorities in Noida and Greater Noida in the past.The protest march also badly impacted traffic in parts of Delhi-NCR.
The day-long protest was followed by a meeting between a delegation of the protestors and the Gautam Buddh Nagar police. The meeting, however, yielded no result.
“The farmers went for the meeting which continued for two hours. However, only police officers and the district magistrate were present there. No officials of the UP government or the local authorities were there for the meeting, so nothing substantial came out of it,” a BKP member said.
A senior police officer, privy to the closed-door meeting, said that the delegation of protestors was told to come back with a “proposal” of what they want now and accordingly the next step would be decided.
The BKP member, led by Sukhbir Yadav ‘Khalifa’, said all issues are known to the UP government.
“We were told during the meeting that a high-level meeting can be possible only after the Parliament and UP Vidhan Sabha, both currently in session, are over, which is likely by February 11. After that either we’ll have a meeting or we’ll again try to march to Parliament,” he added.
Farmer groups in Noida and Greater Noida have been protesting since December 2023, with demands for greater compensation and developed plots against their lands acquired in the past by the local development authorities, which function under the UP government.
Border security
Bracing for another agitation by farmers, police are fortifying the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh and Delhi-Haryana borders with barricades and deploying more than 5,000 security personnel, a senior police officer said here on Friday.
“We are in contact with our counterparts in Haryana, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh to know how many farmer organisations will join the protest and the number of expected people. After a proper review, we will chalk out a plan to ensure law and order situation,” said another senior police officer.
Barricades were set up at the Chilla border with the Noida Police on one side and the Delhi Police on the other to prevent protesters, who started their march from the Mahamaya Flyover in Noida around 12 pm, from entering the national capital. “The police are also in contact with the paramilitary forces and a proper security plan will be there,” said the officer.
The demands
Several farmer associations, mostly from Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab, have called for another protest on February 13 to demand a law guaranteeing a minimum support price (MSP), one of the conditions they had set when they agreed to withdraw their agitation against the now repealed farm laws in 2021. Other demands are implementation Swaminathan recommendations, pensions, debt waiver, withdrawal of cases and “justice” for Lakhimpur Kheri victim.