Former Union Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal reached the Ghazipur border on Thursday to meet farmers protesting against the farm laws. She was accompanied by more than a dozen MPs from different parties.
However, because of heavy barricading at the border, they could not meet the farmers. Ms. Badal told reporters that the Lok Sabha Speaker was not allowing a discussion on the farmers’ protest.
The purpose of the visit, Ms. Badal said, was to inform the Speaker about the situation at the protest site. “We are here so that we can discuss this issue [farmers’ protest] in Parliament,’ she said.
She took on the Delhi Police for heavily barricading the border that rendered any movement impossible. “It is unprecedented. The fortification is like that at the Pakistan border,” she said.
“Why we are being prevented from meeting our own people? They are treating farmers as foreigners. When we can’t go and meet them, how can they come to Delhi for dialogue? How will the ambulances and fire brigade move in case of an emergency? It seems the farmers have been left to die,” she asserted.
Earlier, she tweeted, “Leaving with 15 MPs from 10 political parties to Ghazipur border in a bus to see the ground situation.”
She was accompanied by NCP MP Supriya Sule, DMK MP K. Kanimozhi and TMC MP Sougata Roy, among others.
Ms. Badal had resigned from the Union Cabinet in September against the government decision to implement the three farm laws.
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