CENTRAL MINISTER THREATENS DHARNA FOR FARMERS

Mathura NOV 20

 

Union minister of state for food processing Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti Wednesday evening threatened Mathura administration that if the Gokul Barrage protesters were not released soon and demands  not met she would not hesitate to sit on a dharna herself.

 

"I would sit on a dharna if farmers and BJP activists  arrested after the lath charge are not released unconditionally," the minister told a gathering of protesters who are on a relay dharna at Damodarpura from November 4. The Gokul Barrage crossing saw a violent protest that led to police firing blanks after the farmers from Gokul-Mahavan area resorted to stone pelting and torched three buses on November 1. The Mathura district administration registered FIRs against 586 persons.

 

The farmers have been agitating to demand increased compensation for their agricultural land which was acquired for the Gokul Barrage catchment area.

 

Every few days a BJP leader visits the inmates in the jail and addresses protesting farmers at Damodarpura. A few days back union minister of state for HRD Ram Shankar Katheria met the protesters and the administrative officials to demand early resolution of the imbroglio. The BJP Lok Sabha member from Fatehpur Sikri Choudhary Babu Lal also met those arrested in jail, and addressed the farmers at the dharna site.

 

Congress MLA Pradeep Mathur raised the issue in the Vidhan Sabha two days ago asking the state government to resolve the crisis at the earliest. Mathur said he had written several times that the farmers of the Damodarpura, Aurangabad and eight villages had lost around 250 hectares of land. They had to be compensated according to the revised norms, but no action was taken.

 

District authorities indicated that a solution was in sight and the state government would soon announce its decision, but the police terror continues in the affected villages, as many of the protesters named in the FIRs are absconding. A few are to get married next month. The villagers want a quick settlement and early release of those arrested. The BJP leaders have suggested to the police officials to review the cases and release them on bail to normalise the situation.