A leading farmers' organisation on Thursday announced suspension of its ongoing protest march from Nashik to Mumbai over agrarian concerns after talks with the Maharashtra government. The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), backed by the CPI(M), announced suspension of the 180-km march from Nashik to Mumbai after a three-and-a-half hour meeting of its representatives with state ministers Girish Mahajan and Jaykumar Rawal.

The farmers had embarked on the march on Thursday morning, but it was called off later. "The meeting (held Thursday) yielded positive results. We will suspend the march today," AIKS president Ashok Dhawale told PTI after the meeting between the two sides at Ambebahula village in Nashik. This is the second time in the last one year that farmers were on the roads to protest against the "betrayal" of peasants by the BJP governments at the Centre and in the state. Earlier, they had planned to launch the march on Wednesday but it was deferred by a day allegedly after the state police stopped scores of farmers approaching Nashik from districts like Thane, Palghar and Ahmednagar. In a late night meeting on Wednesday, the AIKS had asked the government to give its assurances in writing, a demand Mahajan agreed to.