Farmers Movement Archive

Police give nod for tractor parades in Delhi on R-Day

Protesting farmers who have been camping at the borders of the national capital for more than two months now will be allowed to enter Delhi with their tractors on Republic Day, according to a compromise arrived at between the farm unions and the police officials on Saturday. The solution follows three days of discussions. Farmer leaders said the Delhi Police had given them permission to hold tractor parades on five routes within the national capital on January 26. A senior police officer, however, said while the original proposal to hold a rally on the Outer Ring Road has been vetoed, farmers will be allowed to enter Delhi in the course of their parade. Control room More than two lakh tractors will participate in the parades, which will start from several points on the border, enter the capital for a stretch and then exit again, according to the farm unions. A control room is being set up to coordinate the parade and more than 2,500 volunteers will be deployed to facilitate the movement of vehicles. The farmers’ parade will only begin well after the official Republic Day parade on Rajpath is completed, they added. Tens of thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, have been camping at several border points round the capital for almost two months, demanding a repeal of the three farm reform laws and a legal guarantee for minimum support prices (MSP) for their crops. The farmers’ negotiations with the government hit a dead end on on Friday. Rashtriya Kisan Mahasangh spokesperson Abhimanyu Kohar, who attended the meeting between the unions and the police, said the tractor parades will start from the Ghazipur, Singhu and Tikri border points, and details will be finalised later on Saturday night. Thousands of farmers, including many women, have already reached the Singhu border from Haryana, Punjab and Uttarakhand to participate in the rally, he added. “Preparations are in full swing for disciplined conduct of the rally. We are getting a huge response from farmers. We had a meeting with police and final route of the rally has been discussed and it will be conveyed to protesters,” Mr. Kohar said.

The Hindu

2021-01-24

New Delhi