Farmers Movement Archive

‘Build bridges, not walls,’ says Rahul Gandhi in swipe at Centre

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted four pictures of arrangements to stop protesting farmers from entering Delhi and, in a cryptic message, asked the Narendra Modi government to build bridges with farmers. “GOI, Build bridges, not walls,” Gandhi tweeted on Tuesday. His tweet comes at a time that the government-farmers talks over the three controversial farm bills have reached a stalemate after 11 rounds. Also read | China, crony capitalism figure in Rahul Gandhi’s criticism of Union BudgetThe Centre has offered to keep the three bills in abeyance for 18 months but farmers want them to be scrapped. Gandhi recently offered “100%” support to farmers and advised them to not retract even an inch from their position. His party, the Congress, has been demanding that the Centre should talk to the protesting farmers and repeal the three farm laws. Meanwhile, security at protest sites is being beefed up, especially since Republic Day when farmers entered Delhi on their tractors and went right up to Red Fort. At Singhu border, iron rods have been hooked between two rows of cement barriers on a part of the main highway to further restrict the movement of protesters.Another portion of the highway at the Delhi-Haryana border is blocked with a makeshift cement wall.At Ghazipur on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border, there are multi-layer barricades to stop the movement of vehicles and barbed wire has been put up to keep away pedestrians.Meanwhile, farmer unions have announced a countrywide chakka jam on February 6 when they would block national and state highways for three hours in protest against their alleged harassment and the Internet ban in areas near the protest sites. (With Agency inputs)

Hindustan Times

02-02-2021

India