Agitating to implement the Swaminathan Committee’s report, Kisan Morcha wing of Koderma BJP unit on Friday staged protest by sitting on railway track for an hour led by Morcha president Nishikant Dikshit. Though this grinding halt was in token form it did disrupt Hatia Patna Express for at least 20 minutes forcing the train to stay at Koderma Station Outer.
Ramchandra Singh, former vice president of Morcha alleged that farmers were ignored by the Government at Centre and added that non implementation of the committee’s report showed the laxity of the Centre. Senior BJP leader Ramesh Singh said that farmers were getting depressed and distressed resorting to self killing due to insensitiveness of ruling Government at Centre.
National Commission on Farmers (NCF) was constituted under the chairmanship of MS Swaminathan in 2004 to look into the causes of farmer’s distress in the wake of suicides by farmers. It has submitted four reports since then having tabled the fifth and final report in 2006. On the site, BJP district president Prakash Ram, district general secretary Shivendra Narayan, vice chairman of District Board Neera Yadav, Ramesh Harshdhar, vice president Birendra Singh, Ramnath Singh, Deonarayan Modi, Chandrabhushan Sao, Sardar Balwant Singh lamba, lalan Sinha, Ajay Jha, Kedar Yadav and hundreds of party workers took part in agitation. Administrative machinery was prepared for the agitation being already announced with CO O.P. Mandal as Magistrate, RPF Inspector Pankaj Kumar Prasad, O/C GRP Shiv Bihari Tiwari with a squad remaining present on the site.