THOUSANDS of peasants and farmers across the country holding the red flags of AIKS protested in over 150 districts at the call of the Bhoomi Adhikar Andolan to hold rallies/sit-in/jail bharo on August 9, on the seven main demands of farmers. Hundreds of peasants were detained in few places. In Rajasthan, this protest was held in 15 districts. In Haryana, there was protest at Rohtak commissioner’s office. In Himachal Pradesh, there was a central protest in Shimla in which thousands of peasants participated. In West Bengal, there was protest in 19 districts; in Tripura, protest was held in 8 districts; Punjab peasants protested in over 13 districts; Madhya Pradesh there were protests in 13 districts. At Rewa, farmers protested with more than 400 cattle with them. In Bihar, farmers protested in over 20 districts; in Uttar Pradesh in more than 15 districts protest programmes were organised; Andhra Pradesh had protests in 15 districts, Telangana tenant farmers protested in 10 districts, in Uttarakhand the protest was held in 3 districts along with protests in Karnataka, Odisha and other states.

The main demands of the protest were: enact a law to ensure remunerative price of 50 per cent above cost of production to all crops; waiver of all kinds of loans of the peasantry; withdraw the anti-farmer notification of the central government banning cattle trade; formally withdraw the land acquisition bill from the parliament; implementation of Forest Rights Act, implementation of MNREGA effectively, ensure monthly pension of Rs 5000 at the age of 60 years.              

All India Kisan Sabha has congratulated the peasants of the country for the successful protest. It appealed all its units across the country to strengthen the united peasant’s movement and take forward united struggles for fulfilling the basic demands of farmers.