IYC protests against Lekhi for calling farmers 'mawalis', demands apology
Darpan News Desk IANS, 23 Jul, 2021 03:53 PM
New Delhi, July 23 (IANS) A day after Union Minister Meenakshi Lekhi described farmers as "mawalis", hundreds of Indian Youth Congress (IYC) activists on Friday staged a protest over the remark and demanded that she apologise to the farmers.
IYC workers under the leadership of their national president Srinivas BV staged a protest outside the residence of Lekhi in the national capital.
The IYC workers raised slogans against the Minister and also burned her effigy.
The protesting IYC activists were detained by the police.
The protest comes a day after Lekhi while addressing a press conference here called the protesting farmers 'mawalis' (ruffians).
However, Lekhi later claimed that her words were "twisted", but added that she withdraws her remarks if they have hurt anyone.
Speaking to the media, Srinivas condemned the remarks and said "This shows their poor thinking and mentality towards farmers of our country."
The IYC leader said that for the last eight months, the country's food producers have been fighting day and night on the borders of Delhi against the three black agricultural laws, leaving everything behind, but the BJP government of the capitalists is trying to prove them as 'mawalis'. However, the country's youth will not let the Modi government succeed in its conspiracy.
Srinivas added that farmers are not 'mawalis', they are the caretakers of this country, they are the food producers of the country.
"But the arrogance has become so dominant in the BJP that it is not missing any opportunity to insult the farmers. It is shameless of a BJP minister to call farmers 'mawalis'," he said.
He demanded that Lekhi go to the farmers sitting on the borders of Delhi and apologise to them, otherwise she should resign from her post, because the country will not tolerate the humiliation of its food producers.
IYC national media in-charge Rahul Rao said that when party colleagues came to protest against Lekhi's use of indecent language for farmers, they were detained by Delhi Police.
"Even if the government arrests us, we will continue to raise our voice against the humiliation of the food producers," he added.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Friday condemned the Congress government in Punjab for allegedly discriminating against teachers and forcing them to come to the streets, and asked state Education Minister Vijay Inder Singla not to behave in an 'arrogant' and 'dictatorial' manner and resolve the grievances of government school teachers immediately.
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Badal on Thursday demanded a high court monitored probe into the manner in which the Congress government in Punjab was playing with the people's lives by creating an artificial shortage of vaccines by selling vaccine doses at a hefty profit to private hospitals.
The electronic conversation took place as US President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that India will receive Covid vaccines directly from the US stockpile, the White House said.
The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General M.M. Naravane, reached Kashmir on Wednesday on a two-day visit to review the prevailing security situation in the Union Territory (UT), the army said in a statement.
"There have been several unfounded media reports that have peddled misinformation among the masses regarding this exercise of national importance," a ministry statement said, adding that the total number of Covid vaccine doses administered in the country so far stand at 21,85,46,667.
The Congress said that it was "appropriate for our initial statement to note that the intrusion by Israeli forces into the Holy Al Aqsa mosque during Ramzan prayers had ruptured the delicate peace in the region".
