TRACTORS, PETROL BOTTLES, & CANE BUNDLES ON DISPLAY
SP, BSP and Cong legislators hold protest demonstrations over new farm laws, fuel price hike and law and order situation outside Vidhan Bhawan
LUCKNOW : Even before the budget session of UP legislature could begin on Thursday, major opposition parties – SP, BSP and Congress – held protest demonstrations over the new farm laws, fuel price hike and law and order situation, outside the legislature building. While some SP legislators reached the Vidhan Bhawan on tractors with sacks of rice and bundles of sugarcane, some others came on bicycles. They took petrol and diesel in plastic bottles and bundles of cane inside the campus to protest the rising fuel prices and on farm issues.
LUCKNOW: Even before the budget session of UP legislature could begin on Thursday, major opposition parties – SP, BSP and Congress – held protest demonstrations over the new farm laws, fuel price hike and law and order situation, outside the main entrance of the legislature building.
While some Samajwadi Party (SP) legislators reached the Vidhan Bhawan on tractors with sacks of rice and bundles of sugarcane, some others came on bicycles. They took petrol and diesel in plastic bottles and bundles of sugarcane inside the campus to protest the rising fuel prices and on farm issues.
Police had a tough time managing the SP legislators and workers and even took some of them into custody.
Also, SP and Congress members held a protest at the statue of Chaudhary Charan Singh, while Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) legislators protested within the corridors of the building and demanded withdrawal of the three new farm laws, roll back of hike in fuel prices and against the poor law and order situation and crime against women.
The most vociferous protest was that of the SP, whose over 100 legislators demonstrated on the steps near the Charan Singh statue with banners, placards and slogans against farm laws, law and order, crime against women, fuel price hike, price hike of essentials etc.
SP MLC Sunil Singh Saajan, who along with colleague Anurag Bhadauria, came on a tractor, said: “We will protest from the streets to the legislature over public issues and anti-people policies of this government. The new farm laws must go. This is a government under which rapes are happening across the state while it is in a stupor.”
Several SP legislators also climbed on the main iron gate of the Vidhan Bhawan building with bottles of petrol and diesel and shouted anti-government slogans.
When they were not allowed to take petrol and diesel bottles and sugarcane bundles inside the building, one Samajwadi Party legislator climbed the pedestal of the Charan Singh statue and placed the sugarcane bundle there.
After the SP legislators finished their dharna and marched inside the legislature to attend the session, four Congress legislators replaced them at the statue and began their protest by shouting “black law against farmers must be withdrawn, roll back fuel price hikes, enough of price rise and lies, now BJP government must quit.”
BSP legislators focused their protest on “atrocities and harassment of dalits, backwards and minorities.”
Later, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav flayed the government over “arrest of some party legislators and workers.” In a tweet, Akhilesh said: “Be it the keel thoko (embedding spikes on roads) government of BJP at the centre or the thoko (kill in police encounter) government in Uttar Pradesh, these governments are scared even of any symbol related to farmers after the public support to farmers agitation. That’s why this government arrested the legislators and workers who were going to Vidhan Sabha session on a tractor.”