Farmers' Rail Roko (Stop Trains) Andolan's impact is growing day by day and the people traveling to or from Punjab are getting impacted the most. On Tueday, Farmers' Rail Roko entered day 7 and the Indian Railways remained mute over the disruption of services due to the ongoing protest. For the unversed, the protest started on Wednesday, April 17, and in the first four days 600 trains were affected. On Saturday, it was reported that around 159 trains were impacted due to farmers staging a rail roko protest at the Shambhu railway station in Patiala district out of which 84 were cancelled. Reports further suggested that the Indian Railways have refunded Rs 36 lakhs till now due to the disruption in services.
While farmers have clearly stated that they will continue to block the railways tracks until their demands are met, it is the people who are facing hardships in their daily lives. A user named Iftar contacted True Scoop on social media and revealed that he along with other people are facing multiple issues due to the ongoing Rail Roko protest. Iftar outlined that passengers keep on waiting for their trains on platform especially those going to Delhi from Ludhiana or vice versa. Not only this, Iftar also slammed the IRCTC for not taking care of the passengers affected due to the ongoing protest.
An official from Ambala railway division was quoted by a news portal saying that Rs 13.02 lakh was given in Ferozepur railway division and Rs 23.22 lakh in Ambala railway division as refund. For the unversed, railway stations like Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Ferozepur, etc come under the Ferozepur Railway Division, while Bathinda, Sangrur, Barnala, Patiala, Ambala, Chandigarh, etc comes under Ambala division.
What are the demands of farmers?
Pandher in a video statement said, "Yesterday SKM non-political, KMM made big announcements. Among them we will question the BJP as well as the opposition parties. We will ask the opposition parties why they did not give a clear answer on pulling out India from the WTO. How will they punish the preparatory of Lakhimpur Kheri if they form a government? Some parties gave a positive response to some of our demands. But, they are not speaking on our every demand, especially on MNREGA and Rs 700 wage."
"In Haryana, there were multiple meetings. In Chandigarh, BJP Punjab Chief Sunil Jakhar had said that they are ready to hold talks with farmers. They are ready to answer anything. Therefore, we have accepted their challenge and by April 23 they should finish this. But, whenever we ask something they say that these are big matters and higher officials can answer this. Therefore, PM Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and JP Nadda should come by April 23 and we will ask them questions," added Pandher.