BJP kisan morcha to observe 'rail roko' on Feb 7

The members of the Bharatiya Janata Party's Kisan Morcha would observe 'rail roko' across the country on February 7 to register their protest against the alleged anti-farmer policies of the government, which prompted suicides by over 1.4-lakh farmers in the past about nine years.

The members of the Bharatiya Janata Party's Kisan Morcha would observe 'rail roko' across the country on February 7 to register their protest against the alleged anti-farmer policies of the government, which prompted suicides by over 1.4-lakh farmers in the past about nine years.

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Interacting with newspersons here on Monday, the BJP Kisan Morcha president Om Prakash Dhankar said that the morcha had been left with the no other alternative but to stop trains, as the government had done nothing for the welfare of farmers to this date.

In Haryana, the farmers would stage agitations in cities including Ambala, Karnal, Sonepat, Jind, Bhiwani, Rewari and Faridabad, whereas in Punjab these places would include Rajpura, Bathinda, Gurdaspur, Sangrur, Fazilka, Hoshiarpur and Ludhiana, he said.

He said that the farmers had even marched up to the residence of the Prime Minister and union agriculture minister, yet the government had not implemented the Swaminathan Commission's report which had been with it since October 2007.

"The prices of crops were still being fixed as per the old formulae that were applied 50 years ago. Agriculture had become a business of losses with increasing prices of seeds, pesticides, diesel and electricity. All farm inputs had been given to the open market forces, whereas the minimum support price fixed by the government did not even cover the input costs," he said.