New Delhi: Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Friday condemned the firing of tear gas shells on farmers to stop them from coming to Delhi and asked the government to immediately accept their demands, including a legal guarantee of MSP.
Protesting farmers on Friday suspended for the day their foot march to Delhi after some of them suffered injuries due to tear gas shells at the Punjab-Haryana border.
In a post in Hindi on X, Gandhi said farmers want to come to Delhi to put forward their demands before the government and express their pain.
“Firing tear gas shells on them and trying to stop them in various ways is condemnable. The government should listen to their demands and problems seriously,” the former Congress chief said.
The suffering of the farmers can be gauged from the fact that today in the country, one farmer is forced to commit suicide every hour, he said.
“The country has not forgotten the martyrdom of more than 700 farmers in the first farmers’ movement due to the extreme insensitivity of the Modi government. We understand the pain of the farmers and support their demands,” he said.
Gandhi said the government should immediately implement all the demands, including a legal guarantee of MSP, fixing MSP at one-and-a-half times the comprehensive cost of cultivation as per the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission, loan waiver, etc.
The country will be prosperous only when the farmers are prosperous, he added.
Earlier in the day, a ‘jatha’ of 101 farmers began to march towards the national capital from their protest site at the Shambhu border but was stopped a few metres away by multi-layered barricading erected by Haryana security personnel.
As the group reached the barricades, security personnel lobbed multiple tear gas shells to disperse the protesting farmers and force them to retreat to their protest site.
Covering their eyes and mouths, several protesting farmers rushed to cover the tear gas shells with wet jute bags to counter the smoke. Many of them were seen uprooting iron nails and barbed wire installed on the road to deter their march.
Chanting ‘Satnam Waheguru’ and holding their union flags, several farmers of the ‘jatha’ crossed the initial layer of barricades easily but could not proceed further.
A few of them were seen pushing an iron mesh put up by security personnel down the bridge constructed over the Ghaggar River. One of the protesters climbed the roof of a tin shade where security forces had been stationed. He was forced to climb down.
Water cannon vehicles have also been deployed at the Shambhu border point.
