Farmers at Singhu borderFarmers Protest Today Live Updates: As thousands of farmers continued their protest at Delhi borders, the Centre has invited representatives of 30 farm unions of Punjab for talks, three days ahead of the scheduled date of December 3. Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said the meeting has been preponed in view of “the cold and Covid”. The Centre has decided that Tomar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will get in touch with the leaders today.
Farmer leaders, meanwhile, said they would consider the invitation “positively”, but would take a decision on attending only on Tuesday morning. he farmer unions emphasised that their demand for the repeal of the new farm laws was “non-negotiable”. Urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to listen to their “mann ki baat”, they said that besides the neighbouring states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, farmers from states like Madhya Pradesh and Kerala were also joining their protest. On Sunday, the farmers had rejected the Centre’s proposal to hold talks as soon as the protesters move to a designated site in Burari on the outskirts of the capital.
In other news, the Delhi government has notified one of the three farm laws that allows trade of food grains and poultry outside the premises of APMC mandis. CM Arvind Kejriwal has termed the legislations promulgated by the Centre “anti-farmer” and demanded their rollback. Meanwhile, the Delhi Police registered an FIR against unknown persons for allegedly rioting, clashing with the police and violating the pandemic norms at the Singhu border on November 27. While no arrests have been made, police are going through video clips to identify the accused.
An empty tent on Burari ground. Farmers have refused to move to the site allocated by govt. Amit Mehra
At Singhu border near Haryana, Monday. Amit Mehra
The farmer unions said the new laws would give “unregulated freedom to corporates”.
Farmer leaders hold a press conference at Singhu Border on Sunday. (Express Photo: Gajendra Yadav)
Serpentine queues of vehicles clogged the roads in parts of the national capital on Tuesday as the Delhi Police kept the Singhu and Tikri borders with Haryana closed for traffic and heightened checking at other places in view of the ongoing farmers' protest. The closure of borders has also resulted in heavy traffic on other alternate routes between Delhi and Haryana. (PTI)
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday asked the government to wake up and shed "arrogance" to provide protesting farmers their rights. "The food grower is sitting in protest on the roads and fields and speeches are being given on TV. We all are indebted to the hard work of farmers. This debt will be over only by giving them justice and their rights, and not by mistreating them or by beating them with batons or using tear gas against them," he said in a tweet in Hindi. "Wake up and come down from the chair of arrogance and think of giving the farmers their rights," he also said.
Protesting farmers use a tractor to remove barricading at the Ghazipur-Ghaziabad border
Amid the ongoing farmer protests that have the party cornered, Punjab BJP leaders spent Guru Nanak Dev’s birth anniversary praying for an early end to the deadlock over Centre’s farm laws. Punjab BJP spokesperson Anil Sareen said: “We hope that something positive comes out of Tuesday's meeting of Home Minister Amit Shah with farmers."
Surjit Kumar Jayani, the head of Punjab BJP's 8-member panel, who is in Delhi since Friday, said, “I will be in the Home Minister's camp office only Tuesday, when farmer union leaders will come to meet him where Union Agriculture Minister will also be present. I will not be inside the meeting, but inside the camp office for sure. Instead of 32, now invites are being sent to 36 members and the rest 4 are from outside Punjab." Harjeet Singh Grewal, another member of the BJP panel for talks with farmers, is also with Jayani. However, no one else from the state BJP is in Delhi.
After the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), yet another NDA constituent, the Rajasthan-based Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP), has expressed unhappiness over the farm laws, claiming it would have to rethink being in the alliance unless the legislations are scrapped. The RLP, led by Hanuman Beniwal, has one seat in the Lok Sabha and three MLAs in the Rajasthan Assembly.
In a letter to Home Minister Amit Shah Monday, Beniwal, MP from Nagaur, said in Hindi: “By drawing your attention to the farmer protests against the three bills, I would like to request you to immediately take action to withdraw these bills. The people who feed the country are agitating amid this extreme winter and the Covid-19 pandemic, which does not reflect well on the government.”
In Monday’s discussions among ministers, it was decided that Tomar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh would get in touch with the leaders of the protesting farmers. Farmer leaders of the BJP too, would try to initiate talks with those leaders of the protesters who may be willing to engage with the government. “The idea is to get them to start talking, because some of them are adamant that there should be no talks unless the laws are withdrawn,” a source said.
BJP leaders have said that the agitation could “dent the BJP’s image as a farmer-friendly party”, something that it cannot afford. The government, sources said, has instructed I&B Minister Prakash Javadekar to see that the “right message is conveyed”.
A 55-year-old farmer, Gajjan Singh (55), a resident of Ludhiana’s Khatra village, died at the Tikri morcha Sunday evening. His family and farmer leaders said that Gajjan had fallen ill after getting repeatedly wet during the clampdown on protesters by the Haryana government using water cannons. On Monday, farmer leaders refused to cremate the 55-year-old’s body demanding that Haryana government officials should be booked over his death. The farmer’s body has been kept at the Bahadurgarh Civil Hospital mortuary.
Activist Medha Patkar urges citizens to take part in the protest.
Farmers in Ambala raised slogans of 'Kisan Ekta Zindabad' and showed black flags to Haryana minister Anil Vij outside Panjokhra Sahib Gurudwara yesterday
With the farmers camping on highways outside Delhi refusing to back down or move to the site designated for the protest, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar met Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday morning.
The Ministry of Agriculture said in the late evening release that Tomar’s meeting with farmer leaders that had been originally scheduled for December 3 had been advanced to December 1 in view of “the cold and Covid”. All those farmer organisations who had been invited to the previous meeting had been invited to the one on Tuesday, to be held in Vigyan Bhavan at 3 pm, the release said.
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Late on Monday evening, the Centre announced that it had invited representatives of the protesting farmers for talks on Tuesday afternoon. Farmer leaders said they would consider the invitation “positively”, but would take a decision on attending only on Tuesday morning.
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