NEW DELHI: Indian police blocked roads on Monday to stop farmers marching to Delhi to seek better crop prices promised in 2021, as thousands of growers camped out on major highways leading to the nation’s capital.
Some government ministers are expected to meet farm union leaders on Monday to avoid a repeat of the year-long protest aimed at forcing the government to scrap farm laws designed to deregulate large-scale agricultural markets.
The march comes just months before India’s national elections, in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is widely expected to win a third term in office.
India’s millions of farmers form an influential voting bloc, and ruling parties struggle to keep growers on their side.
Television footage showed farmers in tractors driving towards Delhi from the northern Indian bread states of Punjab and Haryana, erecting barriers including barbed wire and cement blocks on the outskirts of the city to stop them. Police also issued orders banning public gatherings in Delhi.
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Farmers have come out following a call by union leaders to demand higher support or guaranteed prices for their produce, pressing the government to fulfill its promise to double farmers’ incomes.
“We will proceed peacefully and our aim is for the government to listen to our demands,” Sarvan Singh Pandher, general secretary of the Punjab Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee, told ANI.
The government announces support prices for more than 20 crops each year to set a benchmark, but state authorities buy only rice and wheat at the support level, benefiting only about 6% of farmers who grow the two crops.
In 2021, when the Modi administration scrapped farm laws after farmers protested, the government said it would set up a panel of growers and government officials to find ways to ensure price support for all farm produce.
