Farmer leaders claim Delhi Police nod for 100-km tractor rally on R-Day

New Delhi: Protesting farmer leaders on Saturday remained firm on their demand of a complete repeal of the three contentious agri laws, stating that they will hold a historic 100-km tractor rally in the national Capital on Republic Day after getting a go-ahead from the Delhi Police that set aside the initial resistance from authorities for the demonstration.

However, Delhi Police Additional Public Relation Officer Anil Mittal said: "We are in the final stages of talks with farmers."

Farmer leaders held a marathon meeting on Saturday to reconsider the government's proposal to put the legislations on hold for 18 months, but no consensus could be reached.

This came a day after the government asked the farmer leaders to revert by Saturday in case they agree to its proposal to suspend the legislations.

"Since the beginning of our agitation, our demand is very clear. We want a complete repeal of these three laws, and we will not settle for anything less than the repeal of the new farm laws," Haryana Bharatiya Kisan Union chief Gurnam Singh Chaduni told a national news agency.

He said farmer unions are currently focusing on their proposed January 26 tractor parade, and after the Republic Day, they will decide on the next course of action.

Over two lakh tractors are expected to take part in the parade and there will be around five routes. The tractor parades will be taken out only after 12 pm, after the Republic Day parade on Delhi's Rajpath concludes, according to protesting farmer unions.

The Delhi Police has given permission to the farmers' tractor parade on January 26, farmer leader Abhimanyu Kohar claimed after attending a meeting between the unions and senior police officers.

The tractor parade will start from the Ghazipur, Singhu and Tikri border points of Delhi, but the final details of routes are yet to be finalised, said Kohar, who is a senior member of the Sanyukt Kisan Morcha, an umbrella body of the agitating unions.

Leaders said five routes have been decided in-principle and farmers will cover 100-km with tractors on every route, and added that 70 to 78 per cent of the routes will be inside Delhi while the remaining will be outside the national Capital.

Sources said one possible route for the tractor parade from Singhu border will be to Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar and it will pass through the Kanjhawala and Bawana areas and then return to the protest site.

Farmers camping at the Tikri border point will start their tractor parade from the protest site and cover areas like Nangloi, Najafgarh, Badli, and Kundli Manesar Palwal (KMP) Expressway, they said.

For farmers camping at the Ghazipur border point, their tractor parade will cover areas like Apsra border-Ghaziabad-Duhai and return to Ghazipur, the sources said.

However, tractor parade routes for farmers camping at Shahjahanpur and Palwal have not been decided yet, they said.

Farmer leader Darshan Pal said that "barricades set up at Delhi borders will be removed on January 26 and farmers will take out tractor parade after entering the national Capital". "We have almost finalised fives routes," Pal, who is also a member of the Sanyukt Kisan Morcha, said.

The Haryana police on Saturday said they have found no proof to support the allegations that there was a conspiracy to disrupt the January 26 tractor parade of agitating farmers and target their leaders.

Addressing a press conference late on Saturday evening at Sonipat, Superintendent of Police, Jashandeep Singh Randhawa said the youth, who was paraded by farmer leaders before reporters on Friday night and later handed over the police, had made the allegations under fear after some volunteers at the Singhu protest site caught him and accused him of eve-teasing.

The youth, whom the SP identified as 21-year-old Yogesh Rawat from Sonipat, was unemployed.

During preliminary investigations none of the claims made by the youth were found to be true, he said.

Randhawa said during the press conference of the farmer leaders on Friday, various allegations included that the youth had supplied arms and weapons in this stir and someone had put him on the task to disrupt the agitation.

A special team was constituted under DSP Vipin Kadyan to probe the matter, he said.