Our resolution a ‘sankalp patra’ against the “corporate, communal, dictatorial regime” at the Centre, says SKM
The Ramlila Maidan Mahapanchayat. Photo: Vikas Coudhary / CSE The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) resolved to intensify its fight against the Bharatiya Janata Party for not implementing minimum support price (MSP) at C2+50 per cent on all crops and a comprehensive loan waiver for farmers, at its Kisan Mazdoor Mahapanchayat in the national capital on March 14, 2024.
The SKM, an umbrella body of 37 farm unions, called its resolution a sankalp patra (Letter of Resolve) against the “corporate, communal, dictatorial regime”.
It appealed to organisations representing all sections of Indian society to convert the ongoing farmers’ and workers’ struggle into a ‘United People’s Movement’.
Hundreds of farmers, mostly from Punjab, gathered at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi on March 14 at the call of SKM for the mahapanchayat. The rally was organised to press the Centre to accept the farmers’ demands, including a law on MSP.
SKM had spearheaded a year-long agitation in 2020-21 on Delhi’s Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur borders against the three farm laws introduced by the central government. The Centre subsequently repealed the laws in November 2021.
The Delhi Police had allowed protesting farmers to hold the mahapanchayat on the condition that no more than 5,000 persons would be allowed to gather. The attendees were also forbidden to bring tractor trolleys and were not to hold any march at the Maidan.
Thousands of farmers began a ‘Delhi Chalo’ (‘Onward to Delhi’) march, called by the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee (led by the SKM Non-political, a breakaway faction of the SKM), last month to demand higher guaranteed prices for their crops. But they were stopped by police armed with tear gas and water cannons at the Punjab-Haryana border.
The mahapanchayat on March 14 was also called to observe March 23, 2024 as ‘Save Democracy Day’ in all villages across India to protest the BJP giving the Kheri Lok Sabha seat to Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra Teni in its first list of candidates for the upcoming elections.
Teni’s name had come into the spotlight during the farmers’ protest in 2020, when his son Ashish Mishra Teni was accused by SKM of mowing down four farmers in Lakhimpuri Kheri in the Terai region of Uttar Pradesh.
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