Farmers to hold ‘Kisan Parliament’ at Jantar Mantar from July 22

New Delhi, July 20

Farmers’ union on Tuesday evening said they will hold a ‘Kisan Parliament’ at Jantar Mantar during the ongoing monsoon session and every day from July 22, 200 protesters will go there from the Singhu border.

After a meeting with Delhi Police officials earlier in the day, a farm union leader said they will hold peaceful demonstrations at Jantar Mantar demanding scrapping of the agri laws and no protester will go to Parliament where the monsoon session is underway.

“We will hold ‘Kisan Parliament’ from July 22 till the monsoon session ends and 200 protesters will go to Jantar Mantar every day. One speaker and one deputy speaker will be chosen every day. In the first two days, there will be discussion over the APMC Act. Later, the other bills will also be discussed every two days,” the leaders said.

Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Mahasangh national president Shiv Kumar Kakka told PTI that farmers, wearing identification badges, will go to Jantar Mantar from the Singhu border to hold the protest.

The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of over 40 farmer unions spearheading the stir against the central farm laws, had planned that around 200 farmers will protest outside Parliament every day from July 22 during the monsoon session.

The monsoon session of Parliament started on Monday and is scheduled to conclude on August 13.

“We informed the police that every day 200 farmers will go to Jantar Mantar from the Singhu border in buses during the monsoon session. It will be a peaceful demonstration and protesters will have identification badges,” Kakka said.

“When police asked us to reduce the number of protesters, we told them to focus on the law-and-order situation and also gave assurance that the protest will be peaceful,” Kakka said.

No written communication has been received from the police yet, he said.

“Police were informed that the protest will be peaceful. We will sit at Jantar Mantar from 10 am to 5 pm. Nobody will go to Parliament and neither will we allow any political person to come to the protest,” he said.

A tractor parade in Delhi on January 26, that was to highlight the demands of farmer unions to repeal three new agri laws, had dissolved into anarchy on the streets of the national capital as thousands of protesters broke through barriers, fought with the police, overturned vehicles and hoisted a religious flag from the ramparts of the iconic Red Fort.

During a meeting on Sunday, the Delhi Police had asked farmer unions to reduce the number of people attending the protest, but it was declined by the farm union leaders.

A day later, the SKM accused the Delhi Police of spreading misinformation by describing their protest outside Parliament as ‘Sansad gherao’.

The SKM has already stated that there are no plans of laying siege to Parliament, and the protest will be peaceful and disciplined, it had said in a statement.

The umbrella body of farmers’ union had earlier said that two days before the monsoon session begins, a “chetavani patra” (warning letter) will be issued to all opposition MPs to protest against the farm laws inside the House.

Thousands of farmers from across the country have been agitating at the Delhi borders against the three farm laws that they claim will do away with the Minimum Support Price system, leaving them at the mercy of big corporations.

Over 10 rounds of talks with the government, which has been projecting the laws at major agricultural reforms, have failed to break the deadlock between the two parties. PTI