Karnataka farmers to join the Gramin Bharat Bandh on Friday

Sections of farmers in Karnataka will be lending their support to the nationwide Gramin Bharat Bandh planned on Friday, and will be shutting down activities in rural areas and towns bordering villages till 4:00 p.m.

Kurubur Shanthakumar, President of the Federation of State Farmers Organizations Karnataka said that it was not right for the government, which was supposed to solve the burning problems of farmers, to portray the struggling farmers as enemies of the country. “In order to condemn the satanic violence on the farmers, to protest across the country and to conduct a widespread and successful rural bandh, all the farmers' organisations across the state have volunteered to conduct a road bandh movement on 16 February [Friday],” he said.

The farmer union coalition Samyukta Kisan Morcha and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha have called the bandh to press the Centre to enact a law to guarantee a minimum support price (MSP) for crops. The protest began on Monday when thousands of farmers from across the country began marching towards the national capital under the “Delhi Chalo” call for a rally the next day.


Farmers from Karnataka, who had travelled to Madhya Pradesh to join the protest in Delhi, have been detained by the Madhya Pradesh police from Monday and are being sent to Varanasi by special train from Ujjain. Chief minister Siddaramaiah had demanded their release, accusing the Central Narendra Modi-led government of being behind this detention.