CHANDIGARH: Punjab farmers have announced to march towards Delhi on December 6 from the Shambhu border (Punjab-Haryana border) if the Union Government refuses to respond to their demands including a legal guarantee of Minimum Support Price (MSP) for crops and other key issues.
Kisan Mazdoor Morcha (KMM) and Samyukta Kisan Morcha (non-political) announced that farmers will march towards Delhi on December 6 in batches from the Shambhu border to press the Centre to accept their various demands.
Slamming the Centre for not holding any talks with the farmers to discuss their demands Kisan Mazdoor Morcha leader Sarwan Singh Pandher said after a long wait, they have decided to head towards Delhi. "We will move towards Delhi on December 6. We have been left with no option. We waited peacefully for the government for nine months. But now we will head towards Delhi," he said.
Tejveer Singh of the Bharatiya Kisan Union said that they have been camping at the two border points for 280 days and the Centre has not held any talks with them since February 18.
Besides a legal guarantee of minimum support price for crops, the farmers are demanding a farm debt waiver, pension for farmers and farm labourers, no hike in electricity tariff, withdrawal of police cases and justice for the victims of the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence, reinstatement of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, and compensation to the families of the farmers who died during a previous agitation in 2020-21.
Earlier Jagjit Singh Dallewal, Coordinator, SKM (non-political) who is a cancer patient had announced he would sit on a fast-unto-death protest at Sangrur’s Khanauri, which is at the border of Punjab and Haryana, from November 26. Dallewal said Sukhjit Singh Hardojhande will be the second person to sit on the fast-unto-death.
The protesting farmers have been camping at Shambhu and Khanauri border points between Punjab and Haryana since February 13, when their 'Delhi Chalo' march, spearheaded by the SKM and the KMM, was stopped by security forces.