Punjab farmers on Wednesday claimed credit for forcing Prime Minister Narendra Modi to turn back without addressing a rally, amid the slugfest between the BJP and the Congress over alleged security lapse on the way to the Ferozepur venue.
“Let’s make it very clear. This is because of huge protest by farmers & people of Punjab that Modi had to cancel his event. There were very few people in the rally ground. Most of them were forced to attend. The rally is cancelled due to negative response by Punjabis. #GoBackModi,” tweeted the Kisan Ekta Morcha, the official handle of the farmers’ movement against the Modi government’s now-repealed farm laws.
The Morcha also took pot shots at the BJP, posting several pictures of the rally site and rows of empty chairs. “When you make arrangements for 1 lakh people and not even 1,000 turn up, it is called disrespect, not ‘security lapse’,” it tweeted.
#GoBackModi was among the top Twitter trends for much of the day as farmers used social media to amplify the call given by nine Punjab-based peasants’ unions to protest the inaction of the central government on many of the assurances given last month on the basis of which the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) called off the yearlong sit-in at Delhi’s borders.
Farmers assemble on a rain-drenched road to block Modi’s cavalcade in Ferozepur on Wednesday. PTI
The SKM, a conglomerate of over 40 farm unions, has been spearheading the nationwide protest against the three farm laws and for a legal guarantee on minimum support price for their produce. The protest had last month forced Modi to apologise and take back the contentious laws.
The SKM stayed away from Wednesday’s protest, neither supporting nor opposing it though there was apprehension among some of its leaders that the government may use the “security lapse” narrative to again malign the movement.
“We had decided to wait till January 15 before deciding on our future course of action but some of the Punjab unions wanted to protest the visit (by Modi) as the majority of the 700 farmers who died during the yearlong protest were from the state,” an SKM leader said, preferring anonymity.
Jagjit Singh Dallewal of the Bharatiya Kisan Union Ekta (Sidhupur) said nine Punjab-based organisations had given a call to protest the visit by burning the Prime Minister’s effigies across the state around the time he starts speaking.
“We are waiting till January 15 for the government to meet our demands but there is one burning issue. It is the Lakhimpur Kheri case. The chargesheet filed in the case of the mowing down of four farmers has named Ashis Teni, son of Union minister of state for home Ajay Mishra Teni, as the prime accused. Still, no action has been taken against the minister,” he said in a video posted on Facebook.
Given the way in which Punjab has been invested in the farmers’ movement, the response to the protest call was considerable despite the cold wet day. Buses ferrying people to Modi’s rally venue in the border district of Ferozepur were stopped and people inside reminded of the yearlong struggle and the manner in which the BJP ecosystem had maligned it.
