'Punjab Bandh' Call for Dec 30 Receives Strong Support: Pandher

Chandigarh: Punjab farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher stated on Thursday that the call for a 'Punjab bandh' on December 30 is receiving strong support from various sectors.

The decision to call for the bandh was made last week by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-political) and Kisan Mazdoor Morcha.

To ensure the bandh's success, SKM (Non-political) and KMM held a meeting with transporters, employees, traders, and other groups at the Khanauri protest site on Thursday.

"Punjab Bandh" will be observed from 7 am to 4 pm on December 30, he told reporters at the Khanauri border site.

There will be a complete bandh on December 30, said Pandher.

However, emergency services will remain operational.

Pander said traders, transporters, employees unions, toll plaza workers, labour, ex-servicemen, Sarpanches and teachers' unions, social and other bodies, and some other sections have lent their support to the bandh.

Besides, common people are also supporting it. This bandh will force the Centre to accept the demands of farmers, the farmer leader said as he slammed the union government for failing to accept the demands of farmers.

Farmers under the banner of SKM (Non-Political) and KMM have been camping at Shambhu and Khanauri border points between Punjab and Haryana since February 13 after their march to Delhi was stopped by security forces.

A "jatha" (group) of 101 farmers made three attempts to enter Delhi on foot on December 6, December 8 and again on December 14. They were not allowed to proceed by security personnel in Haryana.

Farmer leader Jagjit Singh Dallewal (70) has been sitting on a fast-unto-death at the Khanauri border since November 26 to put pressure on the Centre to accept the farmers' demands, including legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP).

Amid Dallewal's worsening health, on Wednesday, a delegation of Punjab's ruling AAP met the farmer leader at Khanauri protest site and urged him to take medical treatment saying that his health is "important".

A senior leader of SKM (Non-political) Kaka Singh Kotra, who addressed the media at Khanauri on Thursday with Pandher, reminded the AAP leaders that "they sat on mass hunger strike when their leader Arvind Kejriwal was arrested. Now, why can't they go and sit and protest outside the Prime Minister's residence".

Kotra felt that ruling AAP in Punjab was not exerting enough pressure on Centre to force them to accept protesting farmers demands.

The role which they (AAP) should have played they have not done so, he said.

"Will only Punjab farmers benefit if a legal guarantee to MSP is given," Kotra asked.

Besides a legal guarantee on the MSP for crops, the farmers are demanding a debt waiver, pension for farmers and farm labourers, no hike in the electricity tariff, withdrawal of police cases and "justice" for the victims of the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence.

Reinstatement of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013 and compensation to the families of the farmers who died during a previous agitation in 2020-21 are also part of their demands.