NEW DELHI, Nov 30: Even as the Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann is campaigning in Gujarat for his Aam Aadmi Party in the state Assembly elections beginning from Friday, he is facing massive protest from the farm workers and trade unions back home.
The protesters, who had gathered at the Patiala Bypass, had started marching towards the Chief Minister’s house around 3 pm. When they reached near the residential society in Sangrur where the Chief Minister has a rented accommodation, they were stopped by the police.
The farm workers and trade unions holding the protest were engaged in clash with the police, who used batons to bring the crowd under control. Dramatic visuals from the site showed the flag-waving, slogan-shouting protesters being beaten by the police.
The protesters are demanding that the state government hike their minimum daily wage to ₹ 700 under the MNREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) and implement the 5 marla land scheme. The protesters also want 33 per cent representation for Dalits in village cooperative societies, increase in recompense for land acquisition, relief for farmers suffering due to cattle deaths from lumpy skin disease and compensation for crop damage.
His Aam Aadmi Party has claimed that the protests are being backed by the BJP. The ruling party in Gujarat, AAP leaders said, is under pressure by the AAP campaign and this is their way of hitting back. The Dalit backlash against AAP is apparently expected to gain points for the BJP, with the party’s vote base among the community as well as the tribal population, steadily shrinking. The AAP government was criticised earlier in Gujarat for not implementing reservation for Dalits in government departments.
(Manas Dasgupta)
