Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait on Saturday announced that farmers will stage dharnas in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab and Uttarakhand on February 21 to press their demands, including a legal guarantee of MSP. Speaking to reporters after attending a panchayat in Sisauli here, Tikait said a resolution was passed during the meeting asking the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) to launch a tractor march to Delhi in the last week of February if the government does not accept farmers' demands.
The panchayat was held as farmers' 'Delhi Chalo' march, called by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha, to press the government to accept their demands entered the fifth day on Saturday.
The farmers from Punjab began their march to Delhi on Tuesday but were stopped by security personnel at Shambhu and Khanauri points on Punjab's border with Haryana. The protesters have stayed put at the two border points since then.
Besides a legal guarantee of minimum support price (MSP) for crops, the farmers are demanding the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission's recommendations, pension for farmers and farm labourers, farm debt waiver, 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.
Tikait said farmers will stage dharnas in four states — Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab