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Farmers' protest: Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, Congress target Prime Minister Narendra Modi over teargas use
Farmers protest was met with a strong response as Haryana Police lobbed multiple rounds of teargas shells at the Shambhu border to disperse the march.
Opposition leaders on Tuesday criticised the government's response to the farmers marching to Delhi, demanding guaranteed crop prices in a repeat of the 2021 protests. Police fired tear gas at hundreds of farmers who tried to break barricades at the Shambhu border near Ambala blocking their way to New Delhi.
Mamata Banerjee attacks Centre
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee condemned the “brutal assault” on farmers and said the BJP-led central government's failure to support farmers “exposes the illusion of ‘Viksit Bharat’.”
“Instead of suppressing their protest, BJP must focus on humbling their inflated egos, power-hungry ambitions, and inadequate governance that has harmed our nation,” Banerjee said in a post on X.
“Remember, it's these farmers who sustain us all, including the high and mighty. Let's stand in solidarity with our farmers against the government's brutality,” she added.
Concrete slabs, iron nails, barbed wires: How police plan to stop farmers' ‘Delhi Chalo’ march
Akhilesh condemns tear gas use
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav also condemned the shelling of tear gas on protesting farmers at Delhi-Haryana border and questioned the much promoted ‘Amritkaal’, or the era of elixir, under BJP rule.
Speaking to reporters, Yadav said, “Using tear gas, and placing nails and barricades (at the borders), everything is being done to prevent the farmers' march. The (central) government wants to suppress farmers' voices. These are the same people from (central) who promised to double the income of farmers, crop rate, and MSP implementation.”
What Congress said
Jairam Ramesh, Congress general secretary in-charge communications, highlighted the government's contrasting decisions to confer Bharat Ratna on agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan and former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh, a champion of farmers while doing “injustice to farmers.”
“Farmer organisations have 3-4 main demands. Their biggest demand is that the Swaminathan formula be implemented...MSP is not 'Modi Selling Price'. MSP is ‘Minimum Support Price’,” he said.
Security in the national capital was tightened after farm unions from Punjab and Haryana marched towards Delhi a day after talks with ministers aimed at securing minimum prices for a range of crops failed.
The march is the latest in a series of similar protests which began more than two years ago and comes months ahead of national elections in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will seek a rare third term, with farmers forming an influential voting bloc.
