Farmers to maintain record of leaders backing their stir
MEERUT: A panchayat held in Karnawal town on Tuesday decided that the protesting farmers would keep a register to maintain record of leaders who visited their protest sites to back their movement and how they assured to raise the issue in front of their top leadership to resolve farmers’ woes, especially the demand to repeal the Centre’s three farm laws.
Karnawal town is a part of Baghpat Lok Sabha constituency and it has over 14,000 voters. Farmers here have been sitting on dharna inside a temple for the past 32 days to support the ongoing movement on Delhi borders and demanding immediate repeal of the farm laws.
The villagers have formed a committee to spearhead the dharna and one of its members Soveer Singh said that the committee had decided to maintain the register from Wednesday onwards. “We shall maintain a record of our demand and what assurances were given by the leaders and public representatives and show it to them when they come to seek our votes next time”, said Soveer Singh.
He said that the register would also show which leaders were sincere and which shed only crocodile tears to fool farmers. “How would they counter our genuine questions when they come and ask for votes,” he said and added, “Farmers are not averse to any party but they would henceforth support only those who genuinely get associated with them to resolve their issues”.
Meanwhile, farmers have started collecting donations from people to ensure a huge participation of farmers along with their tractors in Kisan Tractors Parade on Republic Day. “We have set a target of taking at least 100 tractors from the town for parade and all would move together on January 23 to avoid pressure of police,” said Singh who explained that the police acted high-handedly with a small group of farmers and pressurised them to either return or take a longer route to reach Delhi.
He said that all tractors would sport Tricolor and reach Ghazipur border on January 23 to ensure their participation in ‘ Kisan Tractor Parade’ on Republic Day.
Meanwhile, RLD leader Jayant Choudhary also visited the farmers on Tuesday and attended the panchayat, which witnessed a huge turnout of people. Addressing the panchayat, Jayant Choudhary advised farmers to keep a record of those leaders and public representatives who either extended their support to their movement or were still keeping a distance.