Fertiliser shortage sparks protests across UP, police lathi-charge farmers

Lucknow: The fertiliser shortage in Uttar Pradesh has spiralled into a state-wide crisis, triggering protests in multiple districts and exposing the gulf between government claims and ground realities. From Ayodhya to Barabanki, Balrampur to Deoria, farmers queued for hours under the blazing sun for urea, only to return empty-handed.

In several places, chaos turned violent, forcing police to resort to lathi-charge to disperse angry crowds.

On Wednesday, tension flared at Kurawan Cooperative Farmers’ Centre in Ayodhya’s Khandaasa block, where baton-wielding police were deployed to control the situation. In another incident, a secretary at Jajwara-68 Cooperative Society was injured during a scuffle. Farmers also staged demonstrations at Teliya Ganj after failing to procure urea.

In Balrampur, Sitapur, Gonda, and Amethi, serpentine queues stretched outside cooperative societies from early morning. In Siddharthnagar, urea distribution was done through tokens under heavy police presence, but hundreds of farmers still returned disappointed.

In Deoria, 161 societies received only 15,636 metric tonnes against the requirement of 17,000 metric tonnes. In Basti, distribution came to a halt after POS machines malfunctioned. Officials later admitted that by late July, fertiliser distribution had already exceeded the target by 56 per cent, raising suspicion of massive irregularities.

The crisis has quickly taken a political turn. The Samajwadi Party (SP) accused the Yogi Adityanath govt of “criminal negligence” and demanded immediate intervention from the Centre. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav said in a statement, “The govt is busy in propaganda while farmers are standing in queues and being beaten with lathis for urea.”