Just when TV channels and the central government machineries were busy showing the images of how successful the second International Yoga Day celebrations were, very few noticed that 250 farmers were also staging protests in Chandigarh with blood.
The farmers, visibly angry with Narendra Modi, staged their protests barely few kms away from the venue, where the prime minister led a group of 30,000 people to perform yoga.
Leading the protests, according to media reports, was Congress leader and the head of party’s farmers’ cell, Indrajeet Singh Jeera. The protesters shouted slogans, “Badal-Modi are anti farmers. Farmers are dying, but Modiji is busy doing yoga.”
The protesters also tried to enter the yoga venue for Modi, but were unsuccessful and were arrested by the police.
They carried the blood donated by farmers as they protested against the rising numbers in farmers’ suicides in the state.
Jeera, in his address said that the farmers in the state had lost hopes with Modi and Badal government. He alleged that the state government had done nothing for the families of those farmers, around 8,000 in number, who committed suicide.
Jeera also wrote an open letter to Modi asking why the benefits provided to farmers during the Manmohan Singh government had been withdrawn.
The protesters also warned that the Akali-BJP combined government in the state will suffer huge consequences if their demands were not met.