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Farmers' unions hold 4-hour 'rail roko' protest across Punjab over MSP
Farmers blocked the railway track at Vallah in Amritsar, Bathinda and protested at Shambhu toll plaza in Ambala, Panchkula's Barwala and Kaithal's Cheeka against the Union government for not fulfilling their demands.
Farmers across Punjab are holding a four-hour ‘rail roko’ protest from 11 am to 3 pm on Sunday in response to a call given for a nationwide protest by the Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella group comprising around 40 farm organisations, to primarily demand the implementation of minimum support price (MSP) for crops.
Farmers blocked the railway track at Vallah in Amritsar, Bathinda and protested at Shambhu toll plaza in Ambala, Panchkula's Barwala and Kaithal's Cheeka against the Union government for not fulfilling their demands.
The decision to hold the protest was taken at a state body meeting at the office of the Bharti Kisan Union (Lakhowal) in Ludhiana on July 11.
Earlier Harinder Singh Lakhowal, BKU general secretary and SKM state committee member, had told The Tribune that the farmers' bodies would hold district-level conventions from July 18 to 30 to mobilise support for the protest.
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The SKM has claimed that neither the committee on MSP has been formed, nor the "false" cases registered against the farmers during the agitation been withdrawn. It also accused the government of not being ready to consider the biggest demand of the farmers - a legal guarantee on MSP.
Earlier this month, farmers' unions had sat on a dharna against industrial bodies and the departments of local bodies over water pollution allegations.
The SKM has also decided to hold a protest against the Punjab government on August 3 over several issues, including the non-payment of sugarcane dues and compensation for cotton crop damaged by whitefly. Times Now reported that Bharti Kisan Union (Sidhupur) president Jagjit Singh Dallewal, who is a member of the SKM, said the farmers will block national highways at three places in Majha, Malwa and Doaba regions in the state on that day.
In May, Punjab farmers had sat on a protest near the Chandigarh-Mohali border after being stopped from heading to the state capital to press the government for a bonus on wheat crop and allow paddy sowing from June 10.
