Despite heavy security deployment, groups of farmers from Punjab managed to reach near two Delhi border points on Friday morning after breaking police barricades in Haryana.
Congress leader Manish Tewari demanded that the government should provide Rs 5 crore compensation to the families of the farmers who died during the farm laws agitation
Most of the farmers have brought at least two trolleys with each tractor with one of them carrying ration and other essentials and the other being used to accommodate the protesters.
Farmers have been protesting seeking repeal of the three contentious farm laws on the borders of New Delhi for the last five months now. The Supreme Court had, on January 11, stayed the implementation of the three laws till further orders and appointed a four-member panel to resolve the impasse.
Tikait said the farmers are ready to talk with the government on the farm laws but made it clear that the discussions should be held without conditions.
Though a number of Jat leaders and farmers said they would vote against the BJP in the upcoming panchayat election, slated for April, they remained non-committal on supporting opposition parties in the assembly polls next year.
India's recently-enacted agri laws have the potential to increase farmers' income, but there is a need to provide a social safety net to the vulnerable cultivators, IMF's Chief Economist Gita Gopinath has said. Indian agriculture is in need of reforms, she said. There are multiple areas where the reforms are needed, including infrastructure, the chief economist of the Washington-based global financial institution said on Tuesday. The three agri laws, enacted in September last year, have been projected by the Indian government as major reforms in the agriculture sector that will remove middlemen and allow farmers to sell their produce anywhere in the country.
In a show of strength, hundreds of women are expected to drive tractors at 'Kisan Gantantra Parade' on Republic Day, as a large number of farmers opposing the new agriculture laws will enter the national capital under a high security cover.
Wearing garlands, the farmer leaders, who had called for observing 'Sadbhavana Diwas' (Harmony Day) on Saturday after the immense outrage over violence by protesters during their Republic Day tractor rally, sat on the dais during the fast, as crowds of supporters swelled, especially in Gazipur where the Bharatiya Kisan Union is leading the protest.
Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) supporters stayed put on the Delhi-Meerut Expressway on Friday as the crowd swelled there, notwithstanding the Ghaziabad administration's ultimatum to vacate the UP Gate protest site where security force in large numbers was re-deployed.
'Only then will we withdraw the agitation.'
Addressing a press conference, farmer leader Darshan Pal Singh said their proposed parade will be called "Kisan Parade" and it will be be held after the Republic Day parade.
Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu on Thursday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was "troubled" with only 15 minutes of wait whereas farmers protested against the farm laws for a year.
'The Modi government must tell us what this person's connection with the BJP is.'
The Centre on Friday said that no farmer died due to police action during the year-long protests by farmers.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday unveiled its manifesto for the West Bengal elections, promising to build a 'Sonar Bangla' by providing employment, strengthening social security schemes and vowing to clear the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act in the first cabinet meeting of the new government.
Amid the ongoing Monsoon Session of Parliament, a heated argument broke out between Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu and Shiromani Akali Dal MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Thursday when the former accused the latter of getting the farm laws enacted while she was a minister in the Union Cabinet, and added that she 'doing drama' over the laws and showing 'fake support' to the farmers' cause.
Without naming the Prime Minister or using his 'andolanjivi' phrase, Tikait said, "In Parliament, they are saying these are parjivis (parasites). Was Bhagat Singh who sacrificed his life for this nation a parjivi? What about 150 farmers who died during this agitation? Were they parjivis too? Had they gone to Delhi to agitate and die?"
The ultras fired on Ghulam Rasool Dar, also the Kulgam district president of the BJP's Kisan Morcha, and his wife in Anantnag town in south Kashmir, a police official said.
Scores of protesting farmers from Punjab and Haryana on Saturday took out protest marches against the Centre's three farm laws even as police used a water cannon to disperse cultivators as they broke barricades at the Chandigarh-Mohali border.
Yadav, a former Uttar Pradesh chief minister, was slated to travel to Kannuaj, around 125 km from the Uttar Pradesh capital, for a tractor rally as part of the 'Kisan Yatra' in support of farmers protesting against the Centre's new agri laws and the 'Bharat Bandh' called by them on Tuesday.
In a joint statement, leaders of eight opposition parties extended their support to the farmers who are protesting the three farm laws.
'If our demands aren't met, then, we will hold tractor march on January 6 and also on January 26'
Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala accused Modi of getting pictures clicked in corporate offices while farmers are protesting on Delhi roads.
'They wil show the whole world see how this government is treating its farmers.'
Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had earlier admitted that the choice of words by Ayush Sinha, a 2018-batch IAS officer, was wrong but had defended the police action.
A video clip of Khattar's comments went viral on the social media, with the Opposition alleging that he told the supporters of the BJP to pick up sticks against the protesting farmers.
'Have you seen a situation like this anywhere before, globally or in India, where a government says, okay, we are withdrawing a law because you don't want it?'
Reading out a reply to the government's talks offer during a press conference, farmers leaders said that they are ready for dialogue with an open mind if they get a concrete proposal, but made it clear they will not accept anything less than a complete repeal of the three agriculture laws and legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP).
Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh on Saturday termed the lathicharge on farmers in Haryana's Karnal a "government-sponsored attack" and said such a "vicious assault" was not only unacceptable but outright condemnable.
The seventh round of talks between protesting unions and three central ministers ended inconclusively on Monday as the farmer leaders insisted on the repeal of the three contentious farm laws right from the beginning, even as the government listed various benefits from the Acts.
In a statement, the SKM alleged that the government had not fulfilled any of the promises, including setting up a committee on minimum support price and withdrawal of cases against protesters, made to the farmers.
Satyamev Jayate 2 has a dated, circa 1990s script which won't find acceptance with today's generations, observes Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
Tractors from Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan have also reached on Tikri border between Delhi-Haryana as the farmers sit in for protest for nearly two months. The move comes as Delhi Police formally granted permission for the rally on January 26, assigning them routes for the same.
'The demands are also the same -- all three 'black' farm laws should be repealed, a new law made to ensure MSP (minimum support price) for crops'
From carrying portraits of their sons and husbands who have committed suicide due to agrarian distress to picketing to doing sewa 24x7 at langars, women have shown a rare determination not to capitulate before the government.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer North) Bijendra Kumar Yadav said farmers have formally declared that they will start returning home from Saturday onwards, but it is not a time bound exercise as their movement will keep progressing through the day.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India Sharad Arvind Bobde will hear the application on January 18 along with pleas raising the issue of farmers protesting at Delhi borders.
'The Modi government is not listening to us. So now we are coming to Delhi to talk with the central government.'
The Noida Traffic Police has advised commuters travelling to Delhi to avoid using the Chilla route and instead take the DND or Kalindi Kunj route.
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