Bhartiya Janta Party will set up a memorial to honour farmers who lost their lives in the police firing at Aligarh, declared the BJP state president, Surya Pratap Shahi. Addressing a farmers’ meeting in Aligarh on Tuesday, Shahi said that farmers were being exploited by the BSP and suffering as its consequence only because they lacked to put up a collective front. Now, the BJP, he said, would strive to forge unity among different farmers’ bodies scattered across the state in order to help them intensify the ongoing agitation against the despotic BSP regime.
Demanding an immediate payment of the compensation money to the family of deceased, Shahi said the government must stay clear of any land acquisition exercise. If there is such a need, let farmers negotiate directly with the interested parties instead of calling for intervention by an official intermediary.
The Mayawati government, he charged, had hatched a conspiracy to provide land to big business houses by coercing farmers. The ongoing agitation in western UP, he added, needed a careful handling, failing which the state could face grave consequences.
Meanwhile, UPCC president Rita Bahuguna Joshi, who was in Meerut on Tuesday, declared that the coercive methods adopted by the ruling party against the farmers will have far reaching repercussions for the state. She also demanded immediate suspension of the district magistrate and SSP of Aligarh and an unconditional acceptance of the farmers’ demands.