-Modi government’s apathy, arrogance have claimed lives of over 60 farmers, says Rahul Gandhi
DM Monitoring
NEW DELHI: The ‘Delhi Chalo’ farmers’ protest at border points of New Delhi has entered the 41st day on Tuesday. Thousands of farmers, especially from Punjab and Haryana, are staging a sit-in protest along Delhi borders. The protest started on November 26. The farmers are demanding a complete rollback of the new farm reform laws and a guarantee on the Minimum Support Price.
Protesting farmer unions on January 5 deferred their proposed tractor march from January 6 to January 7 due to a bad weather forecast, even as they asserted they will intensify their stir in the coming days. Addressing a press conference at Singhu Border here, union leaders said thousands of farmers will take out the tractor march from all protest sites to the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) on January 7.
Swaraj Abhiyan leader Yogendra Yadav said the decision to defer the march was taken over forecast of bad weather condition on Wednesday. The city has been receiving rains sporadically over the past three days.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said, Modi government’s apathy and arrogance have claimed lives of over 60 farmers. Instead of wiping their tears, GOI is busy attacking them with tear gas. Such brutality, just to promote crony capitalists’ business interests. Repeal the anti-farm laws.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on January 5 accused the BJP of favouring wealthy people over farmers.
In a Hindi tweet, Akhilesh Yadav said, “The biggest problem with the BJP government is that it does not consider itself as a public representative (jan pratinidhi) but as wealth representative (dhan pratinidhi).”
Hence, for the wealthy people, it is putting farmers’ interest at stake, he said, adding that the BJP has forgotten that those whom it is causing harm constitute two-third population of the country and never accept defeat.
Farmers agitating against the farm laws are likely to hold a “tractor march” on Republic Day in protest against the new agri farm laws. At a press conference on January 2, the union leaders said the time has come for “decisive” action as their demands for a repeal of the three agri laws and a legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP) have not yet been addressed by the government.
“The farmers’ movement delivered an ultimatum to the Government of India and announced that farmers will march into Delhi on January 26,” Sankyukta Kisan Morcha, an umbrella body of around 40 protesting unions, had said in a statement.
In a recent development, the apex court agreed to hear a plea submitted by 35 students of Panjab University in the form of open letter addressed to Chief Justice of India S.A. Bobde on December 2, 2020.
The Supreme Court (SC) registered the open letter as a public petition on January 4, 2021. In their letter, the students have urged the SC to inquire into the police excesses used on agitating farmers by the Haryana govt, to look into illegal detentions of protestors and to withdraw cases against farmers by the Haryana police “registered under political vendetta”.
