Farmers set to rally at Jantar Mantar to protest against agri laws; security beefed up

Security at Jantar Mantar in central Delhi has been tightened in view of a protest by farmers against the Centre’s agri laws on Thursday amid the Monsoon session of Parliament, officials said. Adequate security arrangements have been made and police and paramilitary personnel deployed, they said. Jantar Mantar is a few metres away from the Parliament House where the Monsoon session is underway. A group of 200 farmers will travel to Jantar Mantar from their Singhu border demonstration site in buses with a police escort and hold protest there from 11 am to 5 pm. The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of farmer unions that has been spearheading the protest against the three farm laws, has been asked to give an undertaking that all COVID-19 norms would be followed and the stir would be peaceful. This is the first time since the violence in the national capital during a tractor rally on January 26 that the authorities have granted permission to the protesting farmer unions to hold a demonstration in the city. Thousands of farmers from across the country have been agitating at three Delhi border points – Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur – 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 sides.