Congress leaders Jyotiraditya Scindia and Kantilal Bhuria were on Tuesday prevented from entering Mandsaur, the nerve centre of the farmers’ agitation in Madhya Pardesh. According to police, the two were stopped in Ratlam district.
On Monday, Mr. Scindia equated the BJP regime in the State to “Hitler’s rule”. He said the death of five farmers in police firing in Mandsaur was a blot on the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government.
“The police firing on farmers agitating for getting the right price for their produce and waiver of loans, which resulted in the death of the five of them is a blot on the head of Shivraj Singh’s government. It appears that Hitler’s rule is prevailing in the State. Chouhan has no right to remain in power,” Mr. Scindia told reporters at the Indore Press Club.
“It is a matter of shame that instead of meeting the grieving farmers’ families, the Chief Minister staged a nautanki [drama] in Bhopal in the name fast. By announcing hefty compensation for them, the Chouhan government tried to trivialise invaluable human lives through money,” he alleged.
Mr. Scindia, who met injured farmers at the government M.Y. Hospital in Indore, said, “I am totally shattered with their ordeal. They alleged that after the firing, police dragged them on the roads and also took away money and mobile phones from their pockets.”
The former Union Minister claimed that the police have termed nearly 700 agitating farmers as anti-social elements and registered cases against them while it has not yet filed a case against those policemen, who ordered to open fire at the protesters.
The government was just hushing up the matter in the name of probe. “The policemen in khaki should not consider themselves as god,” he said.
The senior Congress leader also denied allegations that his party had added fuel to the agitation.
“The Congress has no role in the farmers’ agitation. We always follow the path of non-violence shown by Mahatma Gandhi,” he said.
Mr. Scindia also announced to stage a 72-hour satyagraha in Bhopal from June 14 in support of farmers.
