Lucknow, July 3 (IANS) The Mayawati administration has conceded Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s plea to hold a farmers meet in Aligarh on July 9.
The BSP government had earlier flatly denied permission to the Gandhi scion to address a rally of farmers in Bhatta-Parsaul village in Greater Noida, where acquisition of land for industrial purposes sparked off a violent clash between the farmers and police leading to the death of four people, including two policemen on May 7.
Once granted permission for Aligarh in a late Saturday night development, the Congress machinery has got down to establishing contact with farmers groups in and around the region where acquisition of land has been a major source of confrontation between farmers and the police over the past few months.
‘I am confident that thousands of farmers from Agra, Bulandshahr, Noida and Greater Noida (Gautam Budh Nagar) will turn up for Rahul Gandhi’s ‘kisan maha panchayat’ in Aligarh on July 9,’ state Congress president Rita Bahuguna Joshi told IANS here Sunday.
‘The aim behind holding the ‘kisan panchayat’ is to ensure that the state government stops giving farmers a raw deal that it has been doing for years,’ she added.
