Republic Day Trailer: Farmers to hold tractor march on 7 Jan; ‘Desh Jagran Abhiyan’ for 2 weeks

New Delhi, Jan 05: The protesting farmers on Tuesday announced that they will intensify their agitation against the three contentious agriculture laws for the next two weeks.

Addressing a press conference, Swaraj India's Yogendra Yadav said that a tractor march will be organised at four Delhi borders on January 7 to press for their demands -- repealing the laws and giving legal guarantee for the Minimum Support Price (MSP) system. The leader called the march a "trailer" before the massive Republic Day agitation.

"We have decided that on January 7, we will take out a tractor march at four borders of Delhi including Eastern and Western peripheral. This will be a trailer for what lies ahead on January 26," Yadav said.

"From tomorrow, for 2 weeks, 'Desh Jagran Abhiyan' will be started and protests will be intensified throughout the country," he added.

"On January 26, we will hold a massive rally in Delhi with tricolours on tractors. We give a call for countrywide protests at all headquarters (of the unions)," the protesting farmers had said.

A stalemate continued on Monday between the government and a representative group of thousands of protesting farmers, as the unions stuck to their demand for the repeal of three farm laws right from the beginning of the meeting even as the ministers listed various benefits of the Acts.

Thousands of farmers, mainly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, are protesting at various Delhi borders for over a month against the three laws. They have stayed put despite heavy rains and waterlogging at protest sites over the last couple of days, besides severe cold weather conditions prevailing in and around the national capital.

Enacted in September 2020, the government has presented these laws as major farm reforms and aimed at increasing farmers'' income.

During the meeting, the government listed various benefits from the three laws, enacted a few months ago, but farmers kept insisting that the legislation must be withdrawn to address their apprehensions that the new Acts would weaken the MSP and mandi systems and leave them at the mercy of big corporates.

The government has maintained that these apprehensions are misplaced and has ruled out repealing the laws.