TIL Desk/National/New Delhi/ Tamil Nadu farmers protesting at Jantar Mantar here “temporarily” called off their agitation after over 40 days after Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami “promised” to meet their demands. “The chief minister and the Union finance minister have the power to take a call on our demands. We have decided to call off the agitation for a period of one month based on the assurances given by our chief minister,” farmers’ leader Ayyakkannu told.
“If the promises are not met, we would resume the protest in the national capital in a bigger way on May 25,” he said. Ayyakkannu said the decision was taken also based on the assurances given by Leader of Opposition in the Tamil Nadu Assembly M K Stalin, MDMK’s Premalatha Vijayakanth, Tamil Manila Congress chief G K Vasan and the BJP’s Pon Radhakrishnan.
The farmers, who have been staging a protest for the past 41 days demanding a Rs-40,000 crore drought relief package, farm loan waiver and setting up of the Cauvery Management Board by the Centre, had earlier refused to end their agitation despite requests by several Union and state ministers apart from leaders of various regional political parties. “We will be leaving for home today or tomorrow and we will be taking part in a state-wide bandh on April 25 in Tamil Nadu,” said Ayyakkannu.