Bengaluru: Seeking permanent solution to their water woes, thousands of farmers from four districts held bike rally and staged protest at Rani Circle in Devanahalli, after they were not let to enter the city.
Over 5,000 farmers from Kolar, Chikkaballapura, Tumakuru and Chitradurga had organised bike rally to Bengaluru, to urge the government to fulfill their long pending demands related to irrigation and drinking water.
As the city had crippled during the last year’s protest by farmers after they brought hundreds of tractors to the city, the police had made heavy deployment at Rani Circle in Devanahalli to stop the agitating farmers from entering the city.
This led to a clash between the leaders of the pro-farmer outfits and police officials. Both engaged in heated argument while the agitators shouted slogans against the state government and the police. Kodihalli Chandrashekhar, President of Karnataka Rajya Raita Sanga and Hasiru Sene, who led the protest, expressed his anger on the government’s stand to suppress the protest. “What will happen if farmers enter Vidhana Soudha? Is Vidhana Soudha the property of the government? Every time when we protest, the government has acted to suppress it but has not done anything to address our issues,” he alleged. As the police did not let the farmers enter the city, the agitators demanded that a representative from the government should come to the spot and assure them of addressing their issues.
More than an hour later, Minister for Agriculture Krishna Byregowda went to the spot. He addressed the agitators and said the government was doing its best to solve the problems faced by farmers. He also assured the farmers that the government will look into the problems faced by the agitators.
But the protesters were not convinced and shouted slogans against him, and he had to leave the place. The police detained thousands farmers and they were released around 9 pm. Chandrashekehar told Deccan Chronicle that the farmer organisations would again discuss the issue and decide the future course of action.
