Farmers and members of Vidarbha Rajya Andolan Samiti during the ‘Bhik Mango’ protest at the Nagpur District Collectorate office on Thursday
Vehicular movement was disrupted, leaving visitors and vehicles queued up outside the office,” said Mukesh Masurkar, VRAS youth wing president. Carrying out a symbolic alms-collection drive, protesters gathered money and handed it over to acting resident deputy collector Indira Choudhari, requesting that the amount be deposited in the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund as a mark of protest against govt’s relief package. “The protest took a tense turn when police barricaded the entrance of the collectorate to prevent us from entering the premises. This led to a heated exchange between protesters and police personnel, following which we staged an hour-long sit-in outside the gate. Apart from financial relief, the memorandum demanded regularisation of encroachments on revenue land cultivated by farmers and distribution of land ownership documents. It also sought removal of the three-generation eligibility requirement for certain non-tribal forest dwellers under the Forest Rights Act. VRAS vice-president Arun Kedar, eastern Vidarbha vice-president Sunil Chokhare, Shetkari Sanghatana Nagpur district president Shrikant Daulatkar and VRAS district president Prashant Nakhate were among those who participated in the protest.