The Congress on Wednesday slammed the Manohar Lal Khattar government in Haryana for resorting to lathi charge against farmers who were protesting against their produce of sunflower seeds not being procured at minimum support price (MSP).
On Tuesday, protesting farmers blocked a highway at Haryana’s Kurukshetra for over six hours. The blockade also affected vehicular movement on the Delhi-Chandigarh and Delhi-Ludhiana-Amritsar routes and police used water cannons and resorted to lathi charge to disperse the agitators. The protesters claimed they were forced to sell their produce to private buyers at around ₹4,000 per quintal as against the MSP of ₹6,400 per quintal.
Attacking the BJP, the Opposition party said the ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’ slogan given by former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri had now been transformed into ‘mare kisan, pite kisan, jai dhanwan’ (farmers die and are beaten up but the rich are hailed).
