New Delhi, July 20 (IANS) All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) on Friday launched the first of its proposed three-part agitation at Parliament Street here, with hundreds of farmers marching and raising slogans against the minimum support price (MSP) offered by the government for their crops.
Farmers from several regions of the country marched from Mandi House to the Parliament Street, only kilometres away from the Parliament House -- where the opposition parties were had brought a no-confidence motion -- expressing their 'no trust' in the Narendra Modi government.
Addressing the farmers there, Committee member and Swaraj India leader Yogendra Yadav called the gathering a "foretaste of the bigger agitations" to be held on August 9 and November 30.
Yadav termed the MSP offered by the government a "historic fraud" and indicted the government for several "anti-farmer" policies, ranging from "low farmer income" and "lowest rise in MSP" to "poor export-import policy" and its "lax attitude during droughts".
"This is no historic decision as the government has been propogating it, it is a historic fraud," Yadav said.
Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Sitaram Yechury called the MSP not just fraud but "treachery with farmers".
"You (farmers) have full support from us. The 'no-trust' motion in Parliament is not to bring down the government ... I know we (opposition parties) will fail. This (the motion) has been brought to expose the anti-people policies of this government," said the leader.
He also accused the government of conspiring to ruin domestic farming community by encouraging imports and discouraging exports.
On November 30, farmers across the country will lay siege to the national capital to force the passage of two bills -- on loan waiver and better farm remuneration, according to the AIKSCC.
