Delhi police, farmers' meeting over proposed Parliament march inconclusive

New Delhi, July 18: The Delhi Police on Sunday held a discussion with the agitating farmers sitting at the Singhu border, ahead of their planned protest near Parliament during its monsoon session to demand repeal of three farm laws.

The cops asked farmer unions to reduce the number of people who would gather in front of Parliament to protest against three agri laws from July 22, but it has been declined.

"We informed police that every day 200 farmers will go to Parliament from the Singhu border during the Monsoon session. It will be a peaceful protest and protesters will have identification badges also," Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Mahasangh national president Shiv Kumar Kakka said.

The Monsoon session of Parliament will start on Monday and is scheduled to conclude on August 13.

Every detail about each protester will be given to police, including a demonstrator''s Aadhaar card and mobile phone number, he said.

Police have offered an alternative place for the demonstration and have asked unions to reduce the number of protesters. This request of the police has been declined by farmer leaders, Kakka said.

The Delhi Police will give its reply on Monday and the timing of the protest will also be decided, he said.

Farmers have been protesting against the central laws since November last year at Delhi border points of Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur.

The legislations were enacted in September last year.

The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of over 40 farmer unions spearheading the stir against the central laws, has planned that around 200 farmers will protests outside Parliament every day during the period of the Monsoon session.

A tractor parade in Delhi on January 26, that was to highlight the demands of the farmer unions to repeal the, 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.

The SKM had earlier said at a press conference that two days before the Monsoon session begins, a "chetavani patra" (warning letter) will be issued to all opposition MPs to protest the farm laws inside the House.

Farmers agitating against the three farm laws claim that the legislations 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.

with PTI inputs