Haryana Farmers Block National Highway, Rally Against Ordinances
The farmers said that the farm ordinances will open them up to exploitation by “big sharks”.
advertisement
Farmer organisations led by Bharatiya Kisan Union, on Thursday, 10 September, blocked the national highway at Pipli in the Kurukshetra district of Haryana.
The farmers were protesting the Centre's three farm ordinances, which they say are "anti-farmer".
Pipli Chowk remained tense and saw clashes between the police and the protestors for nearly four hours, reported PTI.
The news agency also reported that these protests were supported by the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party.
The protesters broke barricades set up by the police and blocked traffic on the highway.
Police lathicharged when some farmers coming from Shahbad area pushed their way into the site of the rally. The agitating farmers also broke window panes of a fire brigade vehicle and pelted stones on the police.
The district administration finally relented and lifted the barriers outside the rally site to allow thousands of protesters reach their destination.
Haryana BKU president Gurnam Singh Charuni described the rally as its first success against the “repressive government”.
He alleged that the central government, through the ordinacnes, was trying to "get out of the well tested Minimum Support Price and Mandi system". This would open small farmers to "big sharks" who would exploit them, he said.
Charuni also condemned the police action on protesters.
Opposition leaders like Haryana Congress chief Kumari Selja, former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and AICC spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala strongly condemned the use of police force on farmers and accused the BJP-JJP combine government of suppressing the voice of peasantry through oppressive measures.
(With inputs from PTI)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)