Bharatiya Kisan Union (Haryana) President Gurnam Singh Charuni said that the members of the farmers’ union will protest at the residence of Haryana MLAs on April 2 over the delay in compensation for the crops damaged by the rains.
He said that thousands of acres of standing crops have been damaged due to rain, hailstorm and water-logging but the government has not ordered any special girdawari of the affected areas in many parts of the state and no announcement has been made by the government. So that the affected farmers can be compensated.
“Farmers will protest in all the assembly constituencies and they will demand their intervention by submitting a memorandum of their demands to the MLAs,” he said. He said that a five-member committee of farmers has been formed and it will look into the problems of the farmers of Haryana.
The Haryana government has already withdrawn most of the FIRs registered against farmers during the agitation, but the central government did not withdraw the cases registered by the Delhi Police and the Indian Railways. Even the government did not form any committee to look into the demand of guaranteed minimum support price to all farmers. He said that he would write a letter to the central government for immediate withdrawal of all pending cases. Also, many farmers who were injured during the agitation have not yet received compensation as announced by the government.
Reacting to the humiliating defeat of his political party in Punjab, he said that all the crops grown by the farmers are not profitable, but it does not mean that the farmer will give up farming.
He said, “I did not contest the elections and even I am not the president of the political party, but they are already in active politics, criticizing us for contesting elections. We did this experiment with the pure intention of providing an alternative to the people of Punjab.”
Earlier, during the state-level meeting of BKU office-bearers, Charuni informed them about the expenditure and donations incurred during the agitation in the state.