“I don’t think even the British ever enacted such a painful scene,” said Gopal Rai, Aam Aadmi Party’s Gujarat in-charge, describing the violence between farmers and the police in Hadadad village of Botad, which escalated from stone pelting to lathicharge and teargas shelling within minutes on Sunday evening during a kisan mahapanchayat organised by AAP. He said, “On that day, the police force surrounded the village, and some police personnel were sent to infiltrate the sabha. The police reached there and someone threw stones at them. And then the police began lathicharge and tear gas shelling. The door of every house in Hadadad has been broken down, police entered the homes, people were arrested and more than 250 people have been detained so far.” AAP is observing Monday as a Black Day to mark the Botad violence. In a press conference in Ahmedabad, Rai announced that a statewide kisan mahapanchayat will be organised in Gujarat on October 31, to be addressed by AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal. “There are 400 mandis (APMCs) in Gujarat, of which 200 are large and the other half, small. AAP leaders, along with farmers, will raise this issue in all mandis and conduct panchayats. On October 31, a mahapanchayat will take place and Arvind Kejriwal will address it. The farmers want justice, dignity, and the rightful price of their produce,” Rai said. This will be the former Delhi Chief Minister’s second Gujarat visit in as many months. Kejriwal was on a two-day visit to Gujarat in early September to address the Kisan Mahapanchayat in Chotila, Surendranagar, which had to be cancelled due to rain. That meet was focused on the Government of India’s cotton import duty policy. “The way tear gas was fired, the way daman chakra (wheel of suppression) was executed, how arrests took place from the day to late at night, it feels like the BJP government has become the enemy of the farmers. The way one attacks an enemy, zulm daha gaya (cruelty was inflicted) on the farmers in Hadadad village of Botad. The police surrounded the village where farmers were conducting a kisan mahapanchayat and suppressed them, and even now, this wheel of suppression continues,” Rai claimed. Invoking past mass movements in Gujarat, he added, “If the government thinks it can suppress the farmers with lathis and teargas, it is sorely mistaken. This is the same Gujarat where during the Independence movement, the Kheda andolan took place, where Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel led a movement that forced the British to capitulate. This is the same Gujarat where in 1974, the Navnirman andolan began from a students’ mess and uprooted the Chimanbhai Patel government. This is the same Gujarat where in 1987, there was firing on farmers (BKS stir) and the public threw out the government. We will take this movement to its logical conclusion. The demands of the farmers are completely justified.” Rai, a three-time AAP MLA from Babarpur in Delhi, has been overseeing the party’s reorganisation in Gujarat ahead of the 2027 assembly elections. On the police action, he said, “The way the police have behaved, breaking down doors as if they are attacking Pakistan. This will not be tolerated in India. I appeal to the farmer leaders of India that the farmers of Gujarat are calling out to you to protest this black day.” Recalling the events preceding the violence, Rai said, “This issue began with the mandi (market) in Botad. Now, the cotton and groundnut crops are ready to be harvested. When the farmers take this price to the mandi, the BJP’s chairmen are implementing a policy called kadada pratha. This means that out of the total produce of a farmer, some amount is purchased at a particular price and then the farmers are told their produce is rubbish and are given the choice of returning home with their produce or selling it at a lesser rate. Farmers are forced to sell at lower rates.” He added, “On October 10, the farmers raised their voices against this oppression in the APMC. The farmer leaders including AAP’s Raju Karpada put these concerns before the APMC leadership. But they refused to relent. The APMC then hatched a conspiracy to halt the protest by putting up a notice that the APMC was shut down indefinitely. The farmers kept sitting through the night. At 4 am on October 11, Raju Karpada and others were arrested by the police. On one hand, while Karpada was driven around by the police, on the other hand, the farmers were evicted from the APMC by the police.” On the events of October 12, he maintained, “The farmers declared they would continue the protest through a kisan mahapanchayat but the Botad APMC was inundated with the police. So, farmers decided to peacefully hold the kisan mahapanchayat in Hadadad village on October 12. Isudan Gadhvi (AAP Gujarat chief) and dozens of other leaders were detained by the police while on the way to Botad.”
