DM Monitoring
Jalandhar: Raising slogans against the Modi government, farmers from across Punjab and Haryana have been heading to Delhi for the February 13 ‘Delhi Chalo’ protest with a long cavalcade of tractor trailers, cars, bikes and buses since Sunday morning.
The farmers said that they are committed to getting their demands fulfilled, which were promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi after they had lifted the farmers’ protest in November 2021.
From Amritsar in Punjab to Ambala, Kurukshetra in Haryana, all that meets the eye on the highway or in the villages were farmers loading their tractors with ration, tents, beds, wood and other essentials and moving to Delhi. Considering the 466-km-long journey, farmers started from Amritsar on February 12 after conducting prayers at Akal Takth in Golden Temple, Amritsar.
The call for the protest has been given by Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (non-political) and the newly launched Kisan Mazdoor Morcha (KMM) led by senior farmer union leaders Jagjeet Singh Dallewal and Sarvan Singh Pandher. The larger umbrella group which organised the 2020 farmers’ protest – Samyukt Kisan Morcha – has said it is not participating in these protests, and is organising a different agitation on February 16.
While farmers are moving to Delhi, the Haryana government has constructed a 12-layer blockage on the Punjab-Haryana border highway situated on river Ghaggar. The Haryana police has constructed cemented walls, put up barricades covered in long concertina wires, dug iron nails into concrete to deflate the tires of the tractors, and filled the intersections between cemented barricades with gravel.
As if this were not enough, they also dug up the Ghaggar riverbed, so that the farmers could not cross over to the other side of the Haryana border. The Haryana police also conducted a mock drill by using teargas on the highway and randomly checking commuters’ Aadhar cards for identity.
As per reports, Haryana police teams were also going to villages to track farmers’ movements and conducting raids at their houses. Evading police raids and harassment, many Haryana-based farmer union leaders have been staying in Punjab for the past few days. The Haryana government has also reportedly turned two large stadiums into temporary jails, in case people need to be detained in large numbers.
The Delhi Police also imposed Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, prohibiting gatherings of people, processions and rallies.
Meanwhile, farmers have been invited for a second round of talks in Chandigarh. The meeting will be held between Union ministers Piyush Goyal, Arjun Munda and Nityanand Rai and farmer union leaders. The first round meeting was held on February 8.
Reacting to these developments, Kisan Mazdoor Ekta coordinator Sarvan Singh Pandher said, “These are not our demands but the commitments made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. There is nothing new in this protest. PM Modi had promised us a law on MSP, which was our right. We are forced to conduct this protest, as the government backed out on its promises. As for the Haryana police’s barricading and actions, they are doing gross injustice with farmers.
They had done it earlier too and we know what happened then.”
This protest has brought back memories of the farmers’ protest in 2020, which was held against the now repealed three farm laws. Modi had repealed the three controversial farm laws on November 19, 2021. While the SKM has distanced itself from Delhi Chalo call, BKU (Doaba) bed by prominent farmer union leader Manjit Singh Rai, a major farmer union from the Doaba region of Punjab, announced its support. Talking to The Wire, Manjit Singh Rai said that more farmer unions would be joining the protest shortly and the Delhi Chalo protest will turn out to be an even bigger protest than the previous one.
