Page:Sharad Joshi - Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage.pdf/124

 Closure of Pune-Nashik section of the busy national highway was a sensational event. Thousands of trucks were stalled. Farmers kept coming up with novel methods to register their protest. One was a move proposed by farmers of the village Nighoje under the leadership of sarpanch Vasantrao Yelwande. Under the pretext of attending a wedding, about hundred farmers left their village at night in small groups. They all were seated in the bullock carts and singing bhajans. In the darkness of night they brought all their bullock carts on highway. They had tied particularly ferocious-looking bulls to their carts and started rasta roko! The farmers were very enthusiastic and the Policemen were totally confused because they just did not know how to tackle this bull force! Those farmers from Nighoje had a further plan of taking out about a thousand bullock carts, entering Pune city overnight and blocking the famous Laxmi Road. Accordingly, over four hundred bullock carts had already assembled at Chakan for further journey. Fortunately, some key leaders of SS realized that this might aggravate the situation and they somehow persuaded those farmers to drop their plan! Repercussions of that agitation were felt all the way in Delhi. On March 15 Government announced in the Parliament that orders have been issued to NAFED to buy onion in the price range of Rs. 45 to Rs. 70 a quintal. Thus the rasta roko ended in victory and the next day, on 16th March, Joshi ended his eightday fast. Previous two agitations were neglected by the Press but this one was well publicized. Farmers’ struggle began to be discussed in the State. NAFED had announced that it would continue to purchase onion till 30 June and therefore rather than rushing onion to the market and creating commotion there; farmers should store it on their own farms properly, sort it out in grades and then bring it to the Market as per their convenience. However, in practice, Onions in Chakan : First Spark

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