Farmers Movement Archive

Farmers to block Delhi-Jaipur highway

More farmers were streaming towards the national capital on Friday in response to the call from protesting unions to intensify the on-going agitation against the three agricultural marketing reform laws by blocking the Delhi-Jaipur highway, and picketing toll plazas on Saturday. Police personnel have been deployed to deal with the situation and provide alternate routes for commuters. For the last two weeks, tens of thousands of farmers have gathered at several points on Delhi’s borders with Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. They are demanding a full repeal of the three contentious laws passed by Parliament in September. “More farmers have now joined the dharna sites at Singhu, Tikri, Ghazipur and Palwal,” said a statement from the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee. “Farmers from Tamil Nadu have arrived and groups of farmers from almost all States of India shall be arriving to join the Delhi protest soon,” it added. Tractor march In Amritsar, thousands of farmers and farm labourers under the banner of the Kisan Mazdoor Sangarsh Samiti started a tractor-trolley ‘march’ for Delhi on Friday to ensure the ongoing agitation doesn’t lose steam. The Samiti is the only Punjab outfit which is still continuing with the ‘rail roko’ agitation, preventing the movement of passenger trains in Amritsar. “We started our march to Delhi after paying obeisance at the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Thousands of farmers and labourers from Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Tarn Taran, Ferozpur, Fazilka, Jalandhar and Moga districts are on the move. We are carrying all essentials, including food and medical supplies, on our tractor-trolleys and vans. We will stop at Shahbad in Haryana tonight and on Saturday will head towards Delhi,” Sarvan Singh Pandher, general secretary of the Punjab unit of the Samiti, told The Hindu . “Our aim is to not let the agitation on Delhi border lose momentum. The Centre will have to bow to our demands and repeal farm laws,” he said. The new laws are meant to benefit private players and end government procurement, resulting in elimination of the mechanism of minimum support price (MSP), he added. The Centre has maintained that the MSP will not be affected by the new laws, which it claims will help increase farm income. The Congress also plans to hold demonstrations at the ‘Shambu border’ on December 14 in support of the farmers, said the party’s State chief Sunil Jakhar. Both carriageways of the Delhi-Agra Highway have been blocked at Palwal by farmers from Madhya Pradesh for a week.

The Hindu

2020-12-12

NEW DELHI