Punjab farmer unions reject Amit Shah’s offer to move protest to Burari ground

NEW DELHI: Rejecting Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s offer of moving the ongoing protests to a designated site in Burari on the outskirts of the national capital, a majority of farmer unions from Punjab have decided to stay put outside Delhi borders.

The Punjab farmers who have launched a campaign against the Centre’s newly enacted farm laws and seek assurance on the MSP and the mandi system, want to hold the protests at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar.

While the Home Minister made an appeal to all unions via the media on Friday evening, he personally called three farmer leaders – Joginder Singh Ugrahan, president of Bharti Kisan Union (Ugrahan), Jagjit Singh Dallewal, president of BKU ( Sidhupur) and Balbir Singh Rajewal, President of BKU (Rajewal).

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It needs to be mentioned here that the number of protesting farmers at Delhi's border swelled further on Saturday as many more joined them from other states. Many of them have refused to move to ground being allocated to them near the capital's outskirts to hold their protest.

"We will not move from here (Singhu Border) and continue our fight. Burari protest ground is more like a jail. Thousands of farmers have come from Punjab and Haryana to join the protest. We will not return home," a farm leader told to reporters.

Noteworthy ,For nearly three months, the farmers have been up in arms against the farm laws, aimed at bringing reforms by doing away with middlemen and improving farmers' earnings by allowing them to sell produce anywhere in the country. The farmers and opposition parties contend that the laws could lead to government stopping the system of buying grain at guaranteed prices, which would leave farmers at the mercy of corporates.

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