India Tomorrow
NEW DELHI—While youth Congress workers from Punjab set afire a tractor near India Gate here in protest against the controversial farm laws passed by the Narendra Modi-led NDA government at the Centre, police detained several Comngress leaders and workers including Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) president Chaudhary Anil Kumar when they tried to take out a rally from Rajghat to Raj Bhawan on Monday.
Punjab CM Amarinder Singh sat on a sit-in against the new farm laws at Khatkar Kalan village, the ancestral village of Shaheed Bhagat, in Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar district in Punjab.
Congress and its affiliated organisations are organising the protests against the farm laws all over the country.
Police have arrested five Youth Congress workers in connection with tractor burning and also seized the car in which they had come.
The police removed the burnt tractor from the spot.
Delhi police in a statement said, “”Today at around 7:15 AM, some (15-20) persons carrying tractor in Tata 407 vehicle came at Rajpath, Man Singh Crossing. They off loaded the tractor and tried to set it ablaze. They claimed to be members of Youth Congress Punjab”.
The police said that the protesters were raising pro-Congress slogans while setting ablaze the tractor.
The tractor is reported to have been brought to India Gate in a truck.
Claiming that the tractor was burnt by the youth Congress, Indian Youth Congress (Punjab), in a tweet, said, “If the deaf are to hear, the sound has to be very loud: Bhagat Singh. In honour of the memory of Shaheed #BhagatSingh, @IYCPunjab protested against the BJP govt’s apathetic treatment of farmers by lighting a tractor at India Gate.
Wake the sleeping govt.
Inquilab Zindabad”.
Protests were also organised in Punjab, Haryana, Karnataka and UP. Several Youth Congress workers were detained in Lucknow and other places in UP while they were protesting against the new farm laws.
The three farm laws passed by the Centre that has angered farmers are : The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill 2020.
Several pro-farmer organisations backed by Congress, SDPI and other political parties also staged protests all over karanataka on the issue of amendments to Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) and Karnatka Land Reforms Act passed by the Karnataka assembly despite strong objection by Opposition parties, mainly Congress and JD(S).
The amended Karnataka Land Reforms Act allows any individual to purchase agricultural land. Earlier, only farmers were allowed to purchase the agricultural land. The amendment in APMC Act allows private players to purchase agricultural produce directly from the farmers.
Appealing Karnataka CM B S Yediyurappa to repeal the amendments to the APMC Act, AICC genreral secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala asked him to give up anti-farmer mindset and not ban the farmers’ protest.
In Tamil Nadu, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) President MK Stalin took part part in a protest against the new farm laws in Keezhambi village of Kanchipuram.
