Farmers hold massive gathering in UP; pledge to continue the fight

Farmers pledged to continue their protest against the Centre’s farm laws by staging a huge gathering at Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh today (September 5). This is one of the largest meetings being held by the farmers since they started the agitation nine months ago, said media reports.

The purpose of the rally was to drive home the message to the Centre that they were not just a “handful of farmers” fighting the government on the farm laws. But that they had the support of “all castes, religions, states, classes, small traders and all sections of the society”.

All the speakers who addressed the gathering from the dais kept reiterating this point.

“They (the Centre) said only a handful of farmers are protesting. Let them see how few are protesting,” they said, urging others to raise their voices so it reaches the ears of those sitting in parliament, said a NDTV report.

Also read: A day after police lathi-charge in Haryana, farmers call for Bharat Bandh

In a tweet, the Rashtriya Lok Dal’s Jayant Chaudhary, said that the administration had refused to give permission to shower flower petals from a helicopter over the gathering.

He tweeted that they had wanted to salute and welcome the people by showering flowers on them. But the DM, ADG, City Magistrate, Principal Secretary and CM did not give them permission! Why did the government see the farmers as a threat to them? he asked in his tweet roughly translated from Hindi.

The Samyukt Kisan Morcha – the umbrella body of 40 farmer unions spearheading the farmers” agitation said this ”mahapanchayat” will make the Yogi-Modi governments realise the power of farmers, farm labourers, and supporters of the farm movement.

The NDTV report added that the thirty-two farmer unions from Punjab have demanded that the state government should withdraw all the cases against protestors by September 8. And that they will hold a bigger protest if the government fails to do so.