JOIN US200 farmers reach Jantar Mantar to protest farm laws amid Parliament session; BJP calls them 'rowdies'
Farmers, protesting against three agriculture laws, on Thursday started a sit-in protest near parliament, renewing their push for repeal of the laws, even as Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar made a fresh bid for restarting talks.
A group of 200 farmers were escorted in buses from their protest sites on Delhi's borders to the heart of the capital even as opposition leader raised their demands for rollback of the agricultural reforms in Parliament.
While Tomar made the customary offer for talks for amending the farm laws to address the concerns of farmers, the BJP launched a sharp attack on the protestors calling them “rowdies”.
Farmers have rejected the offer for amending the three laws and insisted on repeal.
“Please stop calling them farmers. The real farmers are tilling their fields. These are people acting on behalf of conspirators. Farmers do not have time to protest at Jantar Mantar. These are people instigated by middlemen. They are 'mawali' (rowdies),” BJP spokesperson and Union Minister of State for Culture Meenakshi Lekhi said.
The 200 farmers, wearing identification badges and carrying flags of their unions, travelled to Jantar Mantar from their border protest sites in four buses with a police escort.
Upon reaching Jantar Mantar, the farmers raised slogans, pumping their fists in the air, and demanded that the government scrap the three laws.
However, they were restricted to a small section of Jantar Mantar with police putting up barricades on both sides.
The Samyukt Kisan Morcha, the umbrella organisation coordinating the farmers' protests, said 20 MPs from Kerala visited the farmers' parliament and expressed solidarity with them.
Farmer leaders say 200 farmers will come to the protest site everyday till August 13 to discuss the three laws clause by clause at the 'Kisan Sansad' at Jantar Mantar.
Delhi Lt Governor Anil Baijal had given special permission for the protests by a maximum of 200 farmers at Jantar Mantar, a few metres from the Parliament Complex, till August 9.
This is the first time since the violence in the national capital during a tractor rally on January 26 that the authorities have granted permission to the protesting farmer unions to hold a demonstration in the city.