The organisation spearheading the farmer protest at the Punjab-Haryana border on Sunday said the agitation would not be called off until the demands were met, even if elections were declared and the model code of conduct kicked in, preventing the government from making any announcements.

The statement by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-political) came in Balloh village in Bhatinda, where farmers had converged for the antim ardas of Shubhkaran Singh who was killed at the Khanauri border last month during the protest.

Soon after the agitation began on February 13, the farmer unions had warned the government not to delay a decision on their demands in the hope of the model code of conduct coming into effect and providing a pretext for not making any promises.

Among the farmers’ demands is a law guaranteeing minimum support prices for 23 crops.

The BJP’s inclusion of junior home minister Ajay Mishra Teni on its first candidate list for the general election seems to have upset the farmer unions further.

The farmers had long been demanding the sack for Teni, whose son has been charged with murder after the minister’s car allegedly mowed down protesting farmers at Lakhimpur Kheri in October 2021.

Sarvan Singh Pandher of the Punjab Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee — one of the protesting organisations — said the poll nomination for Teni had rubbed salt into the farmers’ wounds. He said the farmers would teach the BJP a lesson for this.

The protesting organisations have called on all farmers, labourers and tribal people to converge in Delhi on March 6, travelling on trains and buses, underlining that the government has said that farmers can come to Delhi without their tractors.

The government had said this in response to criticism of the fortifications it had put up across the Punjab-Haryana border to prevent the protesting farmers from marching to Delhi in their tractors.

The farmers have also given a call for a countrywide “rail roko” on March 10 for four hours, starting from noon.