The Southern phase of the Kisan Mukti Yatra was organized under the leadership of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Samanvay Samiti. Kisan leaders speaking in Vijaywada on 17 September 2017 said that the government owed farmers to the tune of 1.5 lakhs every year; farmers demanding loan waivers are not asking for charity but for their rights. It is the government which is indebted to farmers and not vice-versa. The haphazard loan waivers granted by the government are ineffective and farmers are demanding a policy-based systematic machinery for debt-relief.
The Yatra started from Telangana and was welcomed at several places by farmers in large numbers. The farmers honoured senior Kisan leader Com. Kolli Nageshwar Rao for his contribution to the protection of farmers’ rights. Two books by Shri Vadde Sobhanadreeswara Rao were dedicated to the people on the occasion. At a programme attended by more than a thousand farmers, Sobhanadreeswara Rao spoke about three main issues of farmers: land rights; reasonably profitable prices; and sustainable debt-relief.
AIKM General Secretary Rajaram Singh, Swaraj India leader Yogendra Yadav, BM Singh, Malla Reddy, Raju Shetty, Gopal Gowda, former Union Secretary for Power and environmental activist EAS Sarma, and others also addressed the meeting. The speakers spoke about the problems facing the farmers currently and called upon them to take inspiration from the spontaneous farmers’ movements in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and organize similar movements in other States also.
Kisan Mukti Yatra meetings were also held at Anantpur, Madanapalli, and will then go into Tamil Nadu. More than 160 farmers’ organizations are participating in the Yatra under the Kisan Sangharsh Samanvay Samiti banner.
The Kisan Mukti Yatra organized by the All India Kisan Sangharsh Samanvay Samiti was accorded a big welcome as it entered Lalkuan in Uttarakhand. This phase of the Yatra had started from Champaran in Bihar on 2 October and will conclude at Amroha on 11 October.
