Farmers from Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee stage a protest as they were stopped while trying to approach the DC office to protest against the arrest of their farmer leaders from the Haryana—Punjab Shambhu border, in Amritsar.
| Photo Credit: ANI
After all 28 leaders of the protesting farmers who attended a discussion with Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on various issues, including the demand for statutory Minimum Support Price (MSP), were arrested on Wednesday (March 19, 2025), the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) and the Samyukt Kisan Morcha-Non Political (SKM-NP) blamed both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Union government and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led Punjab government of working together to protect the interests of corporate houses.
Spokesperson of Bharti Kisan Union (Ekta-Sidhupur) Gurdeep Singh Chahal told The Hindu over phone from Punjab that their leader Jagjit Singh Dallewal had not taken even water since the arrest.
“All the 28 leaders of SKM-NP, including Mr. Dallewal and Sarvan Singh Pandher, are observing fast in police custody. The Punjab Police arrested all of them the moment they entered Punjab jurisdiction from Chandigarh. The police has destroyed the protest venue at the Shambhu border. Hundreds of our activists are in Punjab Police’s custody. All of us are fearing arrests and have not gone to our houses,” Mr. Chahal said, adding that such repression was unheard of even during the colonial regime. “Both the BJP and the AAP are behind this conspiracy against farmers,” he said.
Coordinator of Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ekta Ugrahan) and a functionary of the SKM Pavel Kussa said the SKM stood for unity of farmers’ organisations. “Now the Punjab government says the farmers’ protests will hamper corporate investments and ease of doing business. So far, they have been claiming that they are a different political party. By muzzling the farmers’ protests, they have proved that they are with the BJP in protecting corporate interests. The demand for legalised MSP is against corporate interests and that is the reason why both the governments are trying to suppress it,” Mr. Kussa said, adding that the SKM would reach out to the leaders of the SKM-NP for joint protests.
Meanwhile, SKM-NP and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha (KMM) said in joint statement that the Punjab government, led by Bhagwant Singh Mann, had stabbed farmers in the back by arresting farmer leaders who were invited for a meeting. “This is a clear example of the government’s betrayal of the farmers’ trust,” the statement said, appealing to the people of Punjab to support the farmers’ movement and join farmers in their struggle for justice.
The SKM, in a separate statement, condemned the Punjab government’s move to arrest several SKM (NP) and KMM leaders, and said the AAP government had shown that it was totally committed to enforcing the framework of corporate and multi-national companies in agriculture, and it was collaborating for this with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the BJP government at the Centre. “It is rather sinister that this move has come after top AAP leaders had a meeting with industrialists yesterday,” the SKM said.
Published – March 20, 2025 10:15 pm IST