Will hold our own Parliament sessions at Jantar Mantar, says Rakesh Tikait

New Delhi, July 22: Farmers 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, a farm union leader said on Tuesday after a meeting with Delhi police officials.

Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait, when asked regarding the security arrangements around Jantar Mantar, said, "Parliament is just 150 metres away from Jantar Mantar. We will hold our own Parliament sessions there. What do we have to do with hooliganism? Are we miscreants?"

Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Mahasangh national president Shiv Kumar Kakka told PTI that every day from July 22, 200 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.

'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 we will 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, SKM accused the Delhi Police of spreading misinformation by describing their protest outside Parliament as 'Sansad gherao'.

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 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.