The farmers, mostly from Madhya Pradesh, were carrying out a peaceful protest on NH-19 since December 4 after police refused to permit them to move closer to Delhi. Farmers at Palwal, who have been protesting on National Highway 19 for over a month, decided to pack up on Thursday, with leaders citing the low number of protesters as the reason for the decision. Speaking to The Indian Express, Jaswant Singh, one of the spokespersons at the site, said, “We decided to return home, keeping in mind the low number of protesters here. Ours was anyway a smaller protest site than the others… We may come back a few days later, with more tractors and in a larger number.”
The farmers, mostly from Madhya Pradesh, were carrying out a peaceful protest on NH-19 since December 4 after police refused to permit them to move closer to Delhi. The protest, however, had turned violent Tuesday when farmers clashed with police as they tried to move towards Faridabad.
Police had filed an FIR. Deepak Gahlawat, SP, Palwal, said: “…We suspect it is one of the reasons why the protesters have decided to return — a majority of them are anyway involved in this and fear police action. Furthermore, they have also lost local support…”
Meanwhile, the passage between Delhi-Noida at the Chilla border was clear after nearly two months Thursday, with protesting farmers having packed up. This comes after BKU (Bhanu) announced Wednesday that they are withdrawing from the agitation.