Sticking to its guns, the Navnirman Krushak Sangathan (NKS) on Wednesday said it would not withdraw its Odisha Bandh call on Thursday even though the State Government appealed them to withdraw it.
This has led to concerns that the bandh might affect students during their annual HSC (Matriculation) Examinations scheduled to be held from Friday.
NKS convenor Akshay Kumar, addressing a Press conference here, said farmers would stage a dawn-to-dusk protest on Thursday, but the examinations are scheduled to begin a day after, which in no way is going to affect the students and teachers.
And since the School and Mass Education Secretary has already clarified that the question papers would be sent to exam centres on the morning of the examination day, the bandh would not disrupt the dispatch of question papers to the centres in any way, Kumar said.
“Farmers have never resorted to any kind of violence while staging protests and we have urged all to demonstrate peacefully because we don’t want to create problems for our own kids who would be appearing at the HSC Examinations,” he said.
He alleged that the examination disruption theory is just a conspiracy of the Government to threaten the farmers to withdraw from the bandh.
“Whenever we have tried to stage protests, the police have foiled our attempts by hook or crook. This is just like throttling the voice of innocent farmers which we would not tolerate. We are confident that our fight for price, pension and prestige of farmers will continue despite threats,” said Kumar.
DGP Dr RP Sharma said adequate arrangements have been made to tackle any kind of untoward incidents during the bandh.
The BJP Krushak Morcha alleged that the State Government has been mentally harassing the farmers and preventing them from staging their protests. “We hope that the farmers would stage their agitation in a peaceful manner without causing any problems for HSC Examinations,” said Morcha general secretary Surath Biswal.
Similarly, PCC chief Niranjan Patnaik said, “We have told them (NKS) that we support their bandh. But they should in any way create problems for the HSC examinees.”
Agriculture Minister Sashi Bhusan Behera said, “The State Government has launched several welfare schemes for farmers. But instead of cooperating in effective implementation of the schemes, the NKS members are resorting to an Odisha Bandh.”