Use barbed wires on India borders, not against farmers: Mayawati

Lucknow, Feb 3 (IANS) Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Wednesday lashed out at the Centre and demanded that concertina wires and other security measures should be used on the country's borders and not against farmers protesting on Delhi borders. Her remarks come over the issue of placing of barricades and concrete slabs along with iron spikes and nails and concertina wires at farmers' protest sites on the Delhi borders. In a series of tweets in Hindi, the BSP chief said: "The barricades along with barbed wires and iron nails etc on Delhi borders to spread panic among millions of agitating farmer families is not appropriate. It will be better if such action was taken on the country's borders." She added: "Due to the central government's attitude towards the agitating farmers on the Delhi borders, especially during the Budget Session of Parliament, important and urgent public interest works are getting affected from day one. The Centre should help normalise the situation by meeting the demand of farmers." Earlier, the BSP leader and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister wrote that her party was always opposed to the new agricultural laws which she claimed were introduced by the Modi government in a "very immature manner" in Parliament last year. "The BSP will always raise its voice against exploitation of farmers and injustice to them, like it has been doing for the poor, Dalits and backwards etc," she said.
--IANS vkt/skp/rs/tsb