Farmers to stage sit-in protests in four states on February 21, says Rakesh Tikait

Farmers will stage sit-in protests in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab and Uttarakhand on February 21 to press the Centre to accept their 21-point demand charter, said Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait on Saturday, reported PTI.

Tikait told media persons after attending a panchayat at Sisauli in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar that a resolution had also been passed to ask the Samyukta Kisan Morcha to organise a tractor march to Delhi in the last week of February.

The panchayat was held as the “Delhi Chalo” march called by the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha and the Sanyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) – two umbrella bodies of around 200 farmers’ and farm labourer unions — entered its fifth day on Saturday with protests by thousands of farmers at the Punjab-Haryana border at Shambhu.

The primary demand of the farmers is a law guaranteeing a minimum support price for agricultural commodities.

A minimum support price is the rate at which the government buys farm produce and is based on a calculation of at least one and a half times the cost of production incurred by the farmers.

Other demands in their charter include the implementation of the MS Swaminathan Commission’s wider recommendations, pensions for farmers and farm labourers, farm debt waiver, reinstatement of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013,...

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