@the_news_21
Pune: The Bharat Bandh called on Tuesday by the ‘All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee’ protesting against the Centre’s new farm laws evoked good response in rural Maharashtra with establishments downing shutters and bus services being suspended in some tehsils.
The protests were spearheaded by farmer outfits like Raju Shetti’s Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana (SSS) and the Left-affiliated All-India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), with the support of the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition of Congress, Nationalist Congress Party and Shiv Sena.
Agitators burnt copies of the new agriculture laws, stage roadblocks and raised slogans against the Prime Minister Narendra Modi led government at the Centre. The Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs) across the state remained shut in most places in the State.
Also Read: Agitators block highway in Aurangabad to support Bharat Bandh
Shetti lit a bonfire of the laws outside his home in Kolhapur’s Shirol tehsil. The former Lok Sabha MP said that a face-off between farmers and the Centre might have been averted if the Modi government had done away with its intransigent posture and parleyed with farmer outfits with an open mind instead.
“The shutdown has received an overwhelming response in the rural areas, where the agrarian population is concentrated. Today’s Bandh has made a mockery of the Centre’s claims that the protests are only limited to a couple of States. It has conclusively demonstrated that the agitation has the emphatic support of the majority of farmers and commoners across the country,” said the SSS chief, stressing that the shutdown was carried out in a peaceful manner.
Dr. Ajit Nawale, State Secretary, AIKS, appealed to the Centre government to take note of the tremendous support shown by all sections of society, including labour outfits and traders’ associations, for the farmers’ agitation. In Nashik and Sangli, brief clashes ensued between protestors and the police.
Noted anti-Corruption activist Anna Hazare, too, endorsed the agitation by going on a day-long fast in his native village Ralegan Siddhi in Ahmednagar district. Hazare said that the agitation should spread across the country and create pressure on the Centre to act in the interests of cultivators.
In a recorded message, Hazare said he has approved of the farmers’ protests outside Delhi, remarking that they had been peaceful during the first ten days of the agitation before the Delhi police attempted to break it up. “In order to create pressure on the government to repeal the farm laws, farmers need to hit streets. But no one should resort to violence,” he warned.
In contrast to rural areas, the shutdown received an expectedly mixed response in the State’s urban pockets where transport was largely unaffected. Even so, protests by the MVA parties were observed across cities.
In several places, Congress and NCP ministers and leaders including Ministers Jayant Patil and Nawab Malik wore black armbands to show solidarity with the agitating farmers.
Lok Sabha MP from Baramati Supriya Sule (NCP) urged the Centre to engage in dialogue with farmers. “Farmers are the ones who provide food. It is the government’s moral responsibility to resolve an issue through dialogue if there is anger in this or in any section of the society,” Sule tweeted in Marathi.
In Aurangabad, Shiv Sena leader and Maharashtra Minister Abdul Sattar led the protest in Sillod. He warned the Centre that Sena activists would march on Delhi if the government did not rollback the agriculture laws. “The Centre ought to scrap these laws immediately. A special day-long Parliamentary session must be called immediately by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and fresh laws must be created by taking farmer outfits and agricultural experts into confidence,” Sattar said.
Pune City Congress general secretary Ramesh Iyer said that the contentious laws failed to assure farmers of a Minimum Support Price (MSP) and appeared to throw them to the mercy of big corporates.
He further remarked, “The BJP-ruled Centre claims to eliminate the middleman and weed out corruption in the APMCs with the new farm laws. But in doing so, it has merely substituted the corruption in the APMC for corporate greed. At least, the poor farmer has some appellate body in the APMC system to secure justice in the form of the MSP. But, how is he going to appeal to an unfeeling corporate entity?”
