Shirahatti Fakir Dingaleshwar Swamiji and other seers participated Sugarcane growers held a rally to Hubballi from Haveri on Saturday.
He recalled that the MS Swaminathan-led committee, constituted in 2004, toured states, studied farming conditions and submitted its report in 2006, covering standards for more than 20 crops.
Addressing the gathering, Shirahatti Fakir Dingaleshwar Swamiji said the Centre had no intention of ensuring justice for farmers. With such a report already available, constituting another committee amounted to deception, he said, alleging the move was aimed at weakening the ongoing agitation. Urging farmers not to withdraw the agitation, he said they should return home only after securing justice. He also appealed to political parties to stay away from the movement and said both state and central govts must discharge their responsibilities. Leaders from farming families would better understand cultivators’ distress, he said, while criticising political loyalists for targeting farmer organisations.
Protesters carried a bier on the shoulders of four people and held a mock funeral procession, with one participant posing as a corpse, to express anger over what they termed continued injustice to cultivators. Haveri : Farmers demanding a fair and remunerative price for sugarcane intensified their agitation on Saturday, taking out a padayatra towards Hubballi and staging a symbolic protest against Union minister Prahlad Joshi .