PTI, NEW DELHI: Hoping to make themselves heard in the power centre of the nation, thousands of farmers, who had converged here from across the country, on Thursday began a two-day protest, backed by the Left, to press their demands including debt relief and remunerative prices for their produce.
The farmers, who converged at Ramlila Ground here and will march to Parliament Street on Friday, came from different corners of the country, including Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh.
Traffic was disrupted in many parts of the city as they marched to Ramlila Ground in the heart of the city on four different routes — starting at the Anand Vihar, Nizamuddin and Bijwasan railway stations and at Sabzi Mandi.
Banded under the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC), which claims to be an umbrella body of 207 organisations of farmers and agricultural workers, many of the farmers came in trains and other packed into buses and other modes of transport.
Those from Delhi and nearby Punjab and Haryana started collecting around 10.30 am, their leaders said. Kamla, a functionary of the All India Kisan Sabha’s Delhi unit, said farmers from nearby areas converged at Majnu Ka Tila on the outskirts of Delhi from where they marched in groups to Ramlila Maidan.
About 1,200 members of the National South Indian River Interlinking Agriculturalists Association reached the national capital in the early hours of Thursday carrying skulls of two of their colleagues who had committed suicide, their leader P Ayyakannu claimed.
The group from Tamil Nadu threatened to march naked if they are not allowed to go to Parliament on Friday. Last year, the group staged protests at Jantar Mantar with the skulls of eight farmers who killed themselves owing to farm losses. The two-day rally will be one of the largest congregations of farmers in Delhi, the AIKSCC has claimed.
At Ramlila Maidan, it was a sea of red as farmers wearing caps and flags gathered, with some of them arriving here after completing a long journey of as long as 36 hours.
