More farmers head to Ghazipur; stir regains momentum
BKU leader Tikait’s renewed war call brings crowds from west UP, U’khand
GHAZIABAD/NEW DELHI: The agitation against the farm laws appeared to regain momentum on Saturday after rallying support from the agricultural community of the crucial western Uttar Pradesh region.
Farmer leaders held a day-long fast on Mahatma Gandhi’s death anniversary at the protest sites on the borders of the national capital including Ghazipur, on the Delhi-Meerut highway, that has now become the new focal point of the stir with more protesters converging there, days after the crowds had waned following the violence at the tractor rally on January 26.
Agitating union leaders claimed that protesters were also heading back to Singhu and Tikri borders from Punjab and Haryana.
Security personnel, including anti-riot police and paramilitary forces, were deployed in strength.
Multiple layers of barricades including concrete blocks had been put at the protest sites, thus fortifying the Singhu border. Wearing garlands, the farmer leaders, who had called for observing ‘Sadbhavana Diwas’ (Harmony Day) on Saturday after the immense outrage over violence by protesters during their Republic Day tractor rally, sat on the dais during the fast.
Addressing the protesters in Ghazipur, Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait, whose emotional appeal had galvanised farmers from Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand to flock to the protest site, said they have fought this battle for over two months now and “won’t relent or retreat”. “The movement was and is strong,”
BKU’s Meerut Zone president Pawan Khatana said, a day after tens of thousands of farmers from politically sensitive western Uttar Pradesh had gathered in Muzaffarnagar to participate in a mahapanchayat in a massive outpouring of support for the agitation after Tikait broke down following administration’s attempt to remove the protesters on Thursday night.
Till now, the agitation was seen as mainly being led by Punjab-based farmer unions. A multitude of green-and-white caps, symbolic of the unions spearheading the battle, union flags and the tricolour, planted on tractors, dotted the Delhi-Meerut highway on Saturday. On various tractors and camps, photos of legendary farmer leaders such as Chaudhary Charan Singh and Mahendra Singh Tikait have been put up.
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