In an emphatic display of agrarian anger, thousands of cultivators from across the districts of West Bengal converged on Rani Rashmoni Road, Kolkata on September 28, staging a day-long sit-in following a statewide mobilisation call by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM). The heart of central Kolkata witnessed extensive disruptions by early afternoon as two massive feeder processions originating from Howrah and Sealdah railway stations poured into the avenue, filling the protest ground to capacity. Addressing the surging assembly, the SKM leadership issued an unyielding ultimatum to the administration, warning that the nation’s food providers would no longer silently endure systemic starvation and that continued indifference would force cultivators to bring vehicular arteries to an absolute standstill to bend state power.

INSTITUTIONAL ASSAULT

Taking direct aim at the constitutional machinery, SKM West Bengal joint convener Amal Halder demanded the immediate arrest of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, asserting that the country has recognised him as a BJP operative in disguise, planted at the helm of the Election Commission by Narendra Modi to demolish democratic foundations. Halder asserted that the arbitrary exclusion of crores of legitimate citizens from voter lists was part of a synchronised assault by the ruling dispensation, targeting not only people's livelihoods and basic sustenance but their fundamental democratic rights on an everyday basis across the nation.

'DOUBLE ENGINE' EXPOSED

Articulating the deep agrarian crisis, SKM joint convener Kartik Pal remarked that the rhetoric of the "double-engine government" has proved to be a cruel hoax inflicted upon the working populace. Pal noted that far from securing profitable margins, cultivators are unable to recoup even the basic cost of production for staples like potatoes, paddy, and jute, while vegetable growers remain completely abandoned without any minimum support price regime. Reminding the assembly of historic precedents, Pal affirmed that just as the resolute siege around Delhi compelled the Modi regime to retreat and vibrant youth resistance forced it to bow, peasants in Bengal must close ranks in militant, unified agitation to secure their legitimate dues.

The deliberate inflation of input costs drew sharp rebukes from peasant leaders, with All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) leader Syed Hossain detailing how the artificial throttling of domestic fertiliser production in favour of costlier overseas imports has fed a vicious black market, saddling farmers with crippling cultivation expenses. AIKS State Secretary Paresh Pal levelled blistering charges regarding the privatisation of agricultural trade, asking who truly controls the agrarian market when Food Corporation of India godowns have been unreservedly handed over to private cartels. Pal observed that the state's Kisan Mandis, painted in Trinamool's blue-and-white insignia, have been reduced to abandoned pastures for the BJP's cattle, where genuine cultivators are subjected to endless documentary harassment while attempting to sell paddy, ultimately forcing them into the clutches of middlemen from whom the government quietly procures to pad procurement balance sheets—an intolerable extortion that leaves indebted peasants to bear catastrophic losses.

SYMBOLIC DISTRESS SALE

A striking, symbolic intervention highlighted this economic devastation on the ground as potato cultivators from Hooghly and Howrah opened makeshift stalls directly on the tarmac, offloading fresh produce at rock-bottom production cost—selling Jyoti potatoes at ₹8 per kilogram and Chandramukhi at ₹10 per kilogram. Highlighting that farmgate price crashes had already driven twelve desperate growers to suicide across the state in recent months, speakers underscored the grim chasm between escalating expenditures and unviable market realizations.

Presided over by peasant organizers Meghnad Bhuiya, Jayatu Deshmukh, Gopal Biswas, Farid Molla, Mihir Paul, and Kalpataru Dutta, the rally resounded with resistance songs rendered by folk artistes and the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA). Responding decisively to sectarian politics, SKM representatives declared that the BJP's attempts to engineer communal fissures through ritualistic posturing would find no foothold in Bengal, whose syncretic agrarian fabric sees evening lamps lit at the sacred Tulsi altar alongside rows of people offering Namaz within the very same village courtyards—vowing that the peasant collective will wage its battle for survival and democratic dignity as an indivisible front.