The government’s decision to delay the paddy crop procurement sparked massive protests in and around Haryana. The demonstrations turned aggressive on Saturday when the police force had to use water cannons on a group of protestors, who broke barricades and gathered outside Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar‘s residence in Karnal.
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News agency ANI released a clip of protest from outside the chief minister’s house in Haryana. Watch the clip here!
The chaos is reported after the Central government deferred the date of paddy crops procurement from October 1 to October 11. The date was postponed from September 25 to October 1.
Farmers also protested outside the houses of other MPs, MLAs and other leaders in Haryana. Earlier on Thursday, Haryana BKU (Chaduni) chief Gurnam Singh Chaduni announced that a widespread demonstration will take place if the state government fails to begin paddy procurement on October 1.
“We want to warn the Khattar government that they should start procurement from October 1. If they fail to do so, we will lay siege to homes of the BJP-JJP MLAs, MPs and their other leaders,” Chaduni said.
The leader called for a tractor rally in the state and urged other farmers to launch a gherao outside the residence of BJP leaders.
Some of the affected areas include Kurukshetra, Karnal and Kaithal districts along the National Highway-44 in Haryana.
The protesters argue that since the paddy crop is ready to harvest and thousands of quintals of paddy have arrived at grain mandis across the state it is becoming difficult to store such a huge amount and another 10-days’ delay would result in massive losses to farmers.
This comes as farmers’ bodies from across the country are already protesting against the newly implemented central farm laws at various borders of Delhi-NCR.
Farmers argue that the new laws introduced by the Modi government make the mandi system unattractive for private dealers and buyers, who can go out and buy crops at forced prices that will result in the exploitation of farmers.