Farmers will bring Haryana govt down: Selja

Fatehabad: Haryana Congress chief Kumari Selja and party’s communication wing in-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala led a dharna outside the deputy commissioner’s office here on Wednesday to protest against the state government’s decision to ban paddy cultivation in eight blocks.

Addressing the gathering, Selja said, “Whoever has hurt the dignity of farmers and farm labourers has not been able to last long.

Both farmers and labourers will pull down Khattar-Dushyant government.” They claimed the autocracy of Manohar Lal Khattar-led government had crossed all limits.

“On May 9, 2020, the Khattar government issued an autocratic order regarding prohibition of paddy cultivation in eight blocks — Ratia (Fatehabad), Sirsa (Sirsa), Guhla, Cheeka and Sivan in Kaithal, Shahbad, Babain, Ismailabad (Kaithal) and Pipli (Kurukshetra). Farmers cannot cultivate paddy on 4,44,659 acres in these eight blocks,” Surjewala said.

“Not only this, paddy cultivation has also been banned on panchayat land in Fatehabad and Jakhal blocks,” he said. If farmers defied the ban, then all government subsidies including electricity, fertiliser and seeds would be stopped and their paddy would also not be purchased at the minimum support price, he added. On May 25, thousands of farmers had protested against ‘dhaan bandi’ in Ratia, they said and accused deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala of lying to farmers by saying that there was no restriction on paddy cultivation on private land. “But this ban has been imposed from Ratia to Peepli on May 9 by his own government. The conspiracy of the Khattar-Chautala government to mislead the farmers is clear,” Selja said.

Selja and Surjewala had earlier staged dharnas at Guhla-Cheeka and Shahabad Markanda.