Open to joining hands with anyone for farmers' cause: Prashant Bhushan

Short of attending massive rallies of the Congress party, estranged Aam Aadmi Party members Prashant Bhushan, Yogendra Yadav and Dr Anand Kumar are ready to join hands even with Rahul Gandhi to reach out to farmers. The trio under their Swaraj Abhiyan have started the Jai Kisan Andolan to rope in farmers' support for withdrawal of the amended land acquisition bill.

"We are willing to work with any organisation, which is willing to take up the farmers cause. But we cannot be part of massive rallies. We plan to reach out to people in as many villages as possible and explain to them about the amended land law," said Prashant Bhushan.

The Jai Kisan Andolan plans to cover one lakh villages of the country. In the first phase, the andolan will travel through villages with a history of farmer struggle. "We will be starting from Champaran in Bihar, Sanand in Gujarat, Chhaparchheri in Punjab, Vidharba in Maharashtra and Hira Nagar on the Indo Pakistan border," said Yadav.

For the next six weeks, 10,000 volunteers of the andolan will be criss-crossing villages to explain to farmers about the amended bill. "If the farmers get convinced and are willing to join us in the struggle, we will ask the villagers to give is a fist of soil as a token of support. All the soil will be collected and given to the parliament," added Yadav.

Swaraj Abhiyan will be organising a farmers' march after six weeks of consultation. The organisation demands rolling back of the land bill, providing farmers with minimum income guarantee and assuring farmers with adequate compensation at the time of natural calamity.

Starting from Punjab, the march will cover Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh and will reach outside the Parliament on August 10. The amended land bill is expected to be tabled in the second week of August.

Taking on the BJP and prime minister Narendra Modi for its anti-farmer approach, Yadav added: "The same BJP was opposing the bill when it was in the Opposition, but now they have diluted the law ever further to make it pro-corporate."

Bhushan, who had also been a founder member of India Against Corruption, took on to the Modi government for have delayed in filling the prominent posts like the CVC, CVO and Lokpal. "Good foreign investments will not come just by acquiring land from farmers. If the government wants foreign investments our system must be corruption free. Land acquisition is only to benefit a handful of Indian corporates," he added.