Group of farmers stage protest against BJP leader Kalia in Bathinda


PTI | Bathinda | Updated: 23-01-2021 19:34 IST | Created: 23-01-2021 19:34 IST
Group of farmers stage protest against BJP leader Kalia in Bathinda
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A group of farmers of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (Ekta Ugrahan) on Saturday staged a protest here against the new farm laws outside a hotel, where senior Punjab BJP leader Manoranjan Kalia was holding a meeting with party workers.

The BJP meeting at the Vishal Nagar locality hotel was held in view of the upcoming civic polls. Elections to eight municipal corporations and 109 municipal councils and nagar panchayats in Punjab will be held on February 14.

The farmers gathered near the venue soon after they came to know about former minister Kalia's meeting there.

Security arrangements made by the Punjab Police to maintain law and order stopped the farmers marching towards the hotel, officials said.

The protesters raised slogans against the Centre for imposing the ''black laws'' on the farming community.

They said the protests against BJP leaders would continue till the Centre repeals the laws.

Earlier this month, a group of farmers held a protest against the Punjab BJP leadership in Jalandhar.

Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, have been camping at several border points of Delhi since November 28 last year, demanding a repeal of the three farm laws and a legal guarantee on the minimum support price (MSP) for their crops.

Enacted in September last year, the three laws have been projected by the Centre as major reforms in the agriculture sector that will remove middlemen and allow farmers to sell their produce anywhere in the country.

However, the protesting farmers have expressed their apprehension that the new laws would pave the way for eliminating the safety cushion of MSP and do away with the ''mandi'' (wholesale market) system, leaving them at the mercy of big corporates.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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