Lucknow Mahapanchayat will take place on November 22, 2021 instead of October 26 owing to the harvest season, said farmers group Samyukta Kisan Morcha’s (SKM) leaders.
The Mahapanchayat was announced as part of the series of demonstrations to protest the death of four farmers and a local journalist at Lakhimpur Kheri district of Uttar Pradesh. Farmers demand the immediate arrest of Union Minister Ajay Mishra, so his son Ashish can face a fair trial for allegedly mowing down protesting farmers.
However, farmer leaders changed the order of demonstrations, “keeping in mind adverse weather conditions at this point of time, and the harvest season.” Now, farmers have called for nationwide protests on October 26 to press for Mishra’s sacking and arrest, and to mark the completion of 11 months of farmers’ struggle at Delhi borders. Similarly, leaders like Balbir Singh Rajewal, Dr Darshan Pal, Gurnam Singh Charuni among others strongly condemned daily wage worker Lakhbir Singh’s brutal murder on October 15 near the Singhu Border protest site.
“From the evidence and reports that have emerged so far in front of the nation, it is clear that this incident did not happen just like that – behind this is a conspiracy to give a bad name to the farmers’ movement and to entrap it in violence,” said the SKM in a press release. Farmers demand that Union Ministers Narendra Singh Tomar and Kailash Chaudhary, who were photographed meeting with Nihang Sikh leader Baba Aman Singh, should immediately resign. They called for judicial inquiry into the matter by a Supreme Court judge and declared that protest sites will have nothing to do with the Nihang Sikhs involved in this incident.
“The SKM would like to clarify strongly that there is no space in the Singhu Border site or any other site for the accused groups and communes in this murder. This is a farmers’ movement and not a religious movement,” said SKM leader Darshan Pal.
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