Samajwadi Party Workers Clash With UP Police During "Bharat Bandh": Report

Samajwadi Party workers came out on the streets of Uttar Pradesh today, raising slogans in support of the ''Bharat Bandh'' called by agitating farmers to press for repeal of the centre's farm laws, leading to clashes with police at many places.

Leaders of the opposition party also sat on a silent protest under the statue of former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh at the Vidhan Bhavan in Lucknow to back the nationwide protest call. Samajwadi Party MLCs Rajpal Kashyap, Sunil Singh Sajan, Anand Bhadauria and Ashu Malik were part of it.

Samajwadi Party leader and former Uttar Pradesh minister Arvind Singh Gope told news agency Press Trust of India that he has been put under house arrest in Barabanki.

There were reports of clashes between police personnel and Samajwadi Party workers in Basti, Bahraich, Gorakhpur, Chandauli, Sonbhadra, Etawah and other districts of the state. In Basti, police allegedly resorted to baton charge.

A senior state government official, however, said the situation was peaceful.

Supporting the farmers, Rashtriya Kisan Manch President Shekhar Dixit said that instead of resolving problems faced by them, attempts were being made to blame them.

"A person who speaks about farmers' interest will rule the country. Days of handing a 'lollipop' to farmers and alluring them have gone. The way in which the farmers have been beaten up is not acceptable. If any farmer is beaten up in any part of the country, then farmers across the country will protest. Instead of resolving the problems being faced by the farmers, attempts are being made to blame them. This will prove costly," Mr Dixit said.

The people of the country get their food only because the "annadata" (farmer) toils the land in extreme heat, cold and incessant rainfall, he said, adding "his efforts should not be ridiculed".

Mr Dixit also claimed that the minimum support price announced by the government has never reached the farmers of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.

"The government has to revamp its style of working, otherwise the issue of doubling the income of the farmers will only remain a day dream," he said.

Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, are protesting at various border points of Delhi against the new farm laws for the last 13 days.

The bandh has been called against the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020, the Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act 2020, all of which were passed by Parliament recently.

The three farm laws enacted in September have been projected by the government as major reforms in the agriculture sector that will remove the middlemen and allow farmers to sell anywhere in the country.

However, the protesting farmers have expressed apprehension that the new laws would pave the way for eliminating the safety cushion of Minimum Support Price and do away with the mandis, leaving them at the mercy of big corporates. The centre has repeatedly asserted that these mechanisms will remain.