Farmers’ rally to hit capital today

New Delhi: Young farmers on motorcycles, housewives from Maharashtra and workers from across the country are among the lakhs of people who would hit the streets of the capital on Wednesday demanding that the Modi government should provide concrete measures for employment generation, controlling price rise and ensuring minimum wages for workers.

After the success of the Maharashtra long march, this would be the first show of strength for the farmers and workers who have travelled from across the country and have congregated at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan despite the incessant monsoon rain playing havoc with their lodging plans.

Organisers All India Kisan Mahasabha, Centre of Indian Trade Unions and All India Agricultural Workers Union said an estimated three lakh people were likely to march to Parliament on Wednesday to press for demands, which included minimum wages of Rs 18,000, concrete measures for generation of decent employment, remunerative prices for peasants as per the Swaminathan Committee recommendations, ensuring public procurement and implementation of MGNREGA.

“We have got tremendous response and people have congregated from across the country. This includes four young farmers who have come on motorcycles all the way from Palakkad district in Kerala,” Tapan Sen, general secretary AIKS said at a press conference here.   

Swarup Kunnampully, a post graduate engineering student, who got the best farmers award from the Kerala state government in 2016 is one of the bike-borne farmers.

Mr Kunnampully said in 7 days, he travelled across the country passing through Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi to take stock of the condition of farmers.

The AIKS has also ferried more than 5,000 people in special trains from Nashik in Maharashtra.

A large number of these people are among the 40,000 farmers who took part in the historic Kisan Long March organised by the Maharashtra Rajya Kisan Sabha (AIKS) for seven days and one night from March 6 to March 12, over a distance of 180 kms from Nashik to Mumbai.

The total cost of booking this special train is Rs 34 lakh. For this, an appeal was made to peasants to contribute Rs 700 per head for the return journey. Over 5,000 peasants from Surgana, Kalwan, Peth, Dindori, Chandwad, Trya-mbakeshwar and other tehsils made their contribution enthusiastically.