Kisan Kranti Padyatra: ‘Not satisfied’ with Centre’s assurance, farmers to continue protest

Naresh Tikait, the chief of Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), which has given a mega protest call, said the farmers are "not satisfied" with the government's assurance hours after thousands of farmers tried to enter Delhi in a massive march on Tuesday.

Underfire, the Centre announced that a committee of chief ministers will look into their demands after a meeting between the protesting farmers at the Delhi-UP border. Union Minister of State for Agriculture Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said the government was assuring the farmers to take forward their cause.

"I assure you all this. We will move court over the NGT order (to ban tractor and vehicles which are more than 10 years old)," he said.

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The minister also said the Centre would look at bringing in some changes to the minimum wage rules for rural areas to solve this problem.

"The government has formed a committee of six chief ministers to look into this issue of labour for farm. The committee is in talks to connect MNREGA with agriculture," Shekhawat added.

"On behalf of (Union Home Minister) Rajnath Singh, I assure you that I will represent the farmers' interests in this committee and whatever changes would be required to link MNREGA with agriculture will be made," Shekhawat told the farmers.

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Not satisfied with the assurances, Tikait       the farmers will stay put at the Delhi border.

"We will discuss this and then decide on future course of action. I cannot decide anything alone, our committee will take the decision," Tikait said.

The farmers were marching towards Delhi over demands ranging from farm loan waiver to cut in fuel prices, but were stopped at the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border with police using water cannons to disperse them.

Seven policemen injured     

Seven policemen, including an assistant commissioner of police, were injured during the protest.

Despite persuasive methods requesting them to wait till outcome of talks of their leaders with govt, a section of crowd turned violent & tried to break barricades forcefully through tractor-trolleys & were also carrying lathis: Delhi Police on today's action on protesting farmers pic.twitter.com/WJ9pnDTGRm

— ANI (@ANI) October 2, 2018

 According to the police, a section of crowd suddenly turned violent as police tried to persuade the protesters, who were participating in the Bharatiya Kisan Union march, not to break the barricades.

The police added that they used 20 tear gas shells and water cannons to manage the crowd.

As many as 3,000 police personnel were deployed to ensure that the farmers are not able to enter Delhi.