Madhya Pradesh: Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan calls off his indefinite fast

Maintaining that the government would be dealing with the miscreants with an iron fist, Chauhan said his fast is an attempt to ensure peace is restored in the state.

The farmers' agitation was marred by violence on June 6 when they pelted stones at the police.

As the state of Madhya Pradesh, led by its Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, still struggles to end the prevailing farmer unrest, a picture by a Hindi daily showing an elderly woman being beaten up by police has gone viral. "On June 16, we will block national highways from 12 p.m to 3 p.m".

The farmers are demanding better prices for their produce and waiver of loans.

Alleging that the Congress has nothing to do now, he said the farmers, who feed the nation, had no intention to harm anyone. We don't think that he is doing any drama. But the BJP government has used brutal ways to suppress our agitations.

Singh said the Congress did not want to draw any political mileage out of the farmers' protest.

He said that whenever farmers were in distress due to loss of crops following a natural calamity, he had rushed to them and comforted and helped them.

Farmers intensified their protest after five of them were killed in police firing near Mandsaur. "I won't sit in my office at Mantralaya (secretariat)".

"Even in this present agitation, he met the farmers' leader on June 4 and promised to resolve this problem". But he went to a ground to run his government. He said that he is sitting on fast to spread the message of humanity, love and peace.

"This will surely benefit the farmers as well as the chief minister". He has appealed to farmers to come to Dussehra Maidan and have a dialogue with him. Madhya Pradesh is a temple to me and its people are my God.

Nearly 70% of India's population of 1.3 billion live in rural areas, according to India's census, but agriculture accounts for just 15 percent of the country's gross domestic product.

Protests spilled into the neighboring state of Maharashtra while farmers in Madhya Pradesh continued to demand loan waivers and higher crop prices.

'I have made a decision to sit on an indefinite fast from Saturday.

"Chouhan should tell people whether his so called fast was a "nautanki" or an act of repentance for his misdeeds that set the state on fire", state Congress chief spokesman K K Mishra said on Saturday.

Another BJP leader and member of parliament Meenakshi Lekhi said that the BJP always stood by the farmers while the opposition has never done anything apart from cribbing about the situation.