Sanyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) organised a huge Kisan Mahapanchayat on 20 March in Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan. The mahapanchayat charted out a countrywide programme against Modi government’s designs of handing ovder Indian agriculture under corporate control and demanded to fulfill all pending demands of the Farmers’ Movement including enactment of a MSP Guarantee Act through a memorandum which was handed over to the Union Agriculture Minister by a fifteen-member delegation of farmer leaders.

The mahapanchayat declared to hold conferences, conventions, yatras and other programmes in all the states to oppose increasing corporate control over the agriculture and hold state-level farmers’ conferences. The movement will also organise Kisan Sangharsh Yatras and will mobilise common people with the demands of the farmers’ movement.

The mahapanchayat condemned the Modi government for snatching away agriculture sector, arable lands, forests and other natural resources from farmers and common people in order to hand them over to crony corporates. The mahapanchayat was addressed by more than fifty farmers’ leaders and activists including Kisan Mahasabha president Ruldu Singh Mansa, Biju Krishnan of AIKS, Rakesh Tikait of BKU, Jogender Singh Ugrahan of BKU(Ugrahan), Medha Patkar, Dr. Sunilam, Satyavan, Suresh Kauth, Raju, Kishore Dhamale of Satyashodhak Shetkari Sabha, Subhash Kakuste of Shramik Shetkari Sanghatana, Tejender Singh Virk and many others. The speakers called for intensifying the resistance against anti-farmers policies.

AIKM President Rajaram Singh and Vice President Prem Singh Gehlawat were present on the occassion along with thousands of AIKM members from Punjab, Bihar, UP, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand. The mahapanchayat was conducted by a nine-member committee comprised of Purushottam Sharma, Jagmohan, Ravinder Patiala and others.