Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday condemned the tear-gassing of farmers in BJP-ruled Haryana, wondering how the nation would progress when its farmers were ill-treated for fighting for their rights.
Police in Haryana had fired teargas shells at farmers who had tried to break through barricades on the state’s border with Punjab at Shambhu near Ambala. The protestors demanding legislation on minimum support prices were marching towards the national capital.
“How can our country progress when the farmers are attacked with tear gas shells for fighting for their basic rights? I strongly condemn the brutal assault on our farmers by the BJP,” wrote the Trinamul Congress chairperson in a statement she posted on X.
“The Central Govt.’s failure to support farmers and labourers, coupled with
futile PR stunts, exposes the illusion of ‘Viksit Bharat’,” she added.
The Samyukta Kisan Morcha and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha had declared that farmers would head to Delhi to press for their demands, including a legal guarantee of a minimum support price.
Security was intensified to keep the protestors out of the national capital given the 2020–2021 farmers’ protests in Delhi against the three farm laws passed in Parliament by the Narendra Modi government.
“Instead of suppressing their protest, BJP must focus on humbling their inflated egos, power-hungry ambitions, and inadequate governance that has harmed our nation,” wrote the Bengal chief minister.
“Remember, it’s these farmers who sustain us all, including the high and mighty. Let’s stand in solidarity with our farmers against the government’s brutality,” she added, concluding with the hashtag “#IstandByOurFarmers”.
Sources in Trinamul have said Mamata sees in the issue, and the protests, an opportunity to politically corner the BJP and its government at the Centre once again, with barely a couple of months left for the general election.
“She is closely monitoring the developments there,” said a Trinamul MP.
“A delegation of MPs being sent, as a gesture of solidarity, is also in consideration,” he added.
During the 2020-21 protests, Mamata was among the most vocal leaders in the national Opposition to support the agitation.
She had sent multiple delegations to protest sites in solidarity with the agitators, besides speaking to the farmers on several occasions and conducting Trinamul-led demonstrations in Bengal.
Some in the principal — non-CPM aligned — leadership of the protests had campaigned in her favour in the Bengal Assembly elections of 2021.
Rakesh Tikait, the face of the 2020-21 movement, had met Mamata at Nabanna in June 2021 a month after she had been sworn in as chief minister for the third consecutive term.
