On Saturday, the Bharti Kisan Union (Ekta Ugrahan) plans to stage dharnas outside the residences of three senior BJP leaders in Punjab as part of the ongoing farmers' protest, now entering its fifth day. Among their demands, the farmers are calling for a legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP).
In addition to demonstrating outside the homes of former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh, BJP's Punjab unit chief Sunil Jakhar, and senior leader Kewal Singh Dhillon, the union will also organize protests at toll plazas across the state, in solidarity with the farmers' Delhi Chalo movement.
On the fifth day of the "Delhi Chalo" march initiated by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha, farmers remained stationed at the border points of Punjab and Haryana. Their persistence underscores their ongoing efforts to compel the Centre to address their demands, notably for a legally assured Minimum Support Price (MSP) for agricultural crops.
The farmers from Punjab began their march to Delhi on Tuesday but were stopped by security personnel at the Shambhu and the Khanauri points of Punjab's border with Haryana. The protesters have stayed put at the two border points since then. The Gurnam Singh Charuni-led Bhartiya Kisan Union (Charuni), which is based in Haryana, will on Saturday take out a tractor rally in solidarity with the protesting farmers.
Union ministers Arjun Munda, Piyush Goyal, and Nityanand Rai are scheduled to engage in the fourth round of discussions with farmer leaders on Sunday. This meeting follows previous attempts at dialogue on February 8, 12, and 15, all of which ended without reaching a resolution.
In a related development, the Haryana Police released a collection of video clips on Friday. These videos purportedly depict several farmers hurling stones and allegedly attempting to provoke security personnel at the Shambhu border.
Besides a legal guarantee for MSP, the farmers are demanding 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.