New Delhi: Farmers’ protests around the national capital have again made it to the headlines this week with two groups attempting to march to Delhi from different directions.
In the current scenario, farmers on Friday were stopped at the Haryana-Punjab Shambhu border while another that tried to enter Delhi from the east through Noida was stopped and sent back to Greater Noida. Although the two groups of farmers belong to separate outfits, they share the same purpose of marching to Delhi and pushing for their set of demands.
Difference between the two farmers’s protests
Shambhu Border protest
The more intense agitation than the one at the Noida-Delhi border is the faceoff at the heavily barricaded Shambhu Border with the police and the local authorities imposing prohibitory orders and suspending internet services in view of the Dilli Chalo march called by farmers of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), led by Sarwan Singh Pandher.
The protesters are currently camping at the border after being blocked by the police. The farmers from Punjab planned a ‘jatha’ of 101 farmers for their foot march to Delhi on Friday from their protest site at the Shambhu border.
Haryana police instructed the farmers not to proceed further, citing a prohibitory order under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS). The Ambala district administration has imposed a ban on any unlawful assembly of five or more people in the district.
Delhi Police is on high alert, and security has been tightened at the city’s border points. A minimal deployment has been made at the Singhu Border, but it may be scaled up depending on the situation at the Shambhu border on the Punjab-Haryana border.
Demands
Among the major demands is a legal guarantee on minimum support price (MSP) on crops. Besides that, the farmers are demanding a debt waiver, pensions for farmers and farm labourers, and a halt to any increase in electricity tariffs.
They are also calling for “justice” for the victims of the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence, the reinstatement of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, and compensation for the families of farmers who died during the previous agitation in 2020-21.
Noida farmers’ protest
The first march began on Monday as farmers embarked on a ‘Delhi Chalo’ march on Monday but were stopped by the police after which they sat on a dharna at the Dalit Prerna Sthal. Police cracked down on the protesters the following day and sent them back to Greater Noida, which is now called the Zero Point.
On Wednesday, they were joined by hundreds of other farmers from western UP, affiliated with Rakesh Tikait’s Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU).
They gathered at the Zero Point to join the protests after the police on Tuesday arrested more than a hundred protesters were arrested during the agitation, according to Police Commissioner Laxmi Singh. Women and elderly individuals among those detained were released later in the day.
