Chennai: The Tamil Nadu farmers who have been protesting at Jantar Mantar for about 41 days have temporarily called off their protest till May 25 and are all set to leave the national capital to participate in the TN bandh on April 25. They would return to Delhi and renew their stir with vigour if the State and Central governments fail to meet their demands, they said.
Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palanisami met them in the morning and assured to fulfil their demands and also promised to take up the issue of the national banks writing off the farm loans with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “He also promised that his government would waive off the cooperative bank loans extended to the farmers,” P. Ayyakannu, farmer leader, said on Sunday evening.
The Union Minister of state for road transport, highways and shipping, Pon Radhakrishnan had sought a fortnight’s time to have the issues resolved and had assured that the farmers would not be pressured to repay loans and instead they would be given fresh loans.
“And now the Chief Minister gave his assurance. So we will wait till May 25 for the problems to be solved, if not we will return to New Delhi and restart our agitation with the support of farmers from several north Indian states like Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Assam who have pledged their support to us,” Ayyakannu announced on Sunday evening at Delhi.
Answering a question, he said the farmers would participate in the DMK sponsored bandh on April 25 and exuded the hope that Tamil Nadu government would keep up its promise.
