(LiveMint)
Thousands of angry farmers who had descended on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border on Monday night, clashed with police on Tuesday when they were stopped from entering the national capital at Ghazipur. Police used water cannons and fired tear-gas shells to stop the protesters, injuring some of them.
This was the latest in a series of rallies by the community to demand better crop prices and loan waivers, among other things, and protest against the policies of the Union government. The farmers, led by the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU), began their march at Haridwar in Uttarakhand on 23 September and planned to reach Delhi’s Kisan Ghat on 2 October.
The protesters reached the Delhi border on Monday night but were stopped from proceeding further. During the day on Tuesday, BKU leaders met Union home minister Rajnath Singh and junior agriculture minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat to present their demands but this failed to end the standoff.
