Farmers’ land protest stalls city traffic

Aug 27, 2010 - Age Correspondent |

New Delhi

Farmers protesting against acquisition of their land for developmental projects and demanding higher compensation laid siege to the capital on Thursday in thousands. They gathered at Rajghat and walked to Ramlila Maidan from where they came to Jantar Mantar where they held a demonstration. The procession disrupted normal traffic in and around Parliament Street area in New Delhi and in the Central Delhi areas

Farmers congregated outside Parliament on Thursday to demand enhanced compensation for their land being acquired for the Yamuna Expressway in Uttar Pradesh. Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) leader Ajit Singh, Jayant Chaudhary and several farmer leaders addressed the protesters.
Traffic in several areas in the capital was thrown out of gear as thousands of more farmers crossed the Delhi borders from Noida, Ghaziabad, Faridabad and Loni to take part in the protest demonstration.
According to a traffic police official, jams were reported at Rajghat, Barakhamba Road and Janpath as well as roads leading to the New Delhi Railway Station, Daryaganj, Nehru Marg, Tolstoy Marg. “Tens of thousands of farmers came in from various directions. It lead to a halt in traffic,” said the traffic police officers.
Farmers intensified the stir after two protesters were killed in police firing in Aligarh district on August 14.
While supporting the demand, Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh said the farmers should have been marching to Lucknow against the Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh and not against the Central government.
The farmers demand that their lands should not be taken away from them and the government should stop intervening in their affairs.
Farmers in Uttar Pradesh have been agitating for higher compensation for their lands acquired for the Yamuna Expressway.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/30043" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-5762ce834239d0af5bb53b3f2fd37e43" value="form-5762ce834239d0af5bb53b3f2fd37e43" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="88578928" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>