Anti-government protest: Farmers take to the streets

Growers from across the province stage sit-in near Punjab Assembly

LAHORE: Hundreds of farmers from across the province took to the streets of Lahore on Wednesday to force the government to cut down input costs, general sales tax and high electricity tariffs.

Though police detained a large numbers of farmers across Punjab on Tuesday, a good number of farmers managed to reach Faisal Chowk on The Mall Road and staged a sit-in in front of the Punjab Assembly under the banner of Pakistan Kissan Ittehad (PKI).

Holding placards and banners against “anti-farmer polices” of the government, the growers shouted anti-government slogans.

PKI President Khalid Mahmood Khokhar, who has held a series of protests against anti-farmer policies in the past couple of years, claimed the government had detained over 3,000 workers despite peaceful demonstrations.

He warned the Punjab government to immediately release the PKI workers or the farmers would be compelled to increase the magnitude of their agitations.

Highlighting the problems of the agriculture sector, Khokhar asked the government to announce subsidised electricity tariff for the sector with revised support prices for wheat, rice, cotton, sugarcane and other important cash crops.

He claimed the agriculturists were passing through the most difficult of times as they were not even able to recover their costs because of high cost of inputs.

PPP joins protest

Opposition Leader in National Assembly Khursheed Shah also joined the farmers in their protest to press the government for accepting their demands.

While addressing the farmers rally, the PPP leader said his party had always supported farmers and labourers at every forum as per the vision of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

Shah asked Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif to order the immediate release of the arrested farmers and accept their demands otherwise PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari would lead a huge farmers rally from Rahim Yar Khan to Lahore.

He lamented the government was unaware of farmers and labourers problems and the ruling party only knew how to make money and get kickbacks in development projects. “Now the times have changed and it will not be possible for the government to suppress the voice of farmers, who were fighting for survival,” Shah said.

About the ongoing tensions with India and Nerndra Modi threatening to cut off water to Pakistan, the PPP leader said the Indian government should get ready to face dire consequences if it resorted to such methods. “The Pakistani nation knows how to defend their rights and geographical borders,” he said, alleging the ruling party always had a soft corner for the neighbouring country.

PPP’s former minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said farmers were struggling for their legitimate rights but the ruling party was showing them sticks and putting them behind bars.

PPP Punjab President Manzoor Wattoo said the PPP would continue supporting  labourers at every forum and would not allow the government to snatch their rights.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 29^th, 2016.