Police gear up to stop Manesar farmers’ protest march to PM house in Delhi

Local police on Monday prepared to stop a procession planned by a group of 500 to 600 farmers in Manesar, who have announced that they will carry out a protest march culminating at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s residence in Delhi on Tuesday. The protest march has been planned in support of the demand for an ordinance on the minimum support price (MSP) for which Punjab-based farmers are camping near the Haryana-Punjab border for a week.

The march has been called by the Dakshin Haryana Kisan Khap Samiti after a meeting of farmers from Kasan and other neighbouring areas in Manesar on Sunday, officials aware of the matter said.

Pardeep Yadav, khap vice president, said the march would begin from Manesar at about 9 am on Tuesday. “We will try to cover the maximum distance until stopped by the police. We have decided to march till the Prime Minister’s house and stage a protest there in support of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha,” he said.

Yadav said they had decided to support the Morcha and its demands after a meeting with their representatives at the Kamala Nehru Park in the city on February 16.

“Morcha representatives arrived here after we approached their leaders for help. We apprised them about the acquisition of 1810 acres of at least 1200 farmers in IMT Manesar for development of Phase-II of the industrial area at a nominal rate of ₹55 lakh per acre by the Haryana government for which we are staging protests continuously for two years,” Yadav said.

“The rate should be at least ₹11 crore per acre. They agreed to press our demand before the Centre during negotiations on MSP. We agreed to support their cause and take out a march to ‘gherao’ the PM’s residence as our earlier effort to seek the Centre’s intervention on the issue didn’t yield any result,” he said.

Manesar deputy commissioner of police, Deepak Kumar Jewaria, said that no permission had been taken to organise any protest march and in the current scenario permission would not be granted for any such protest.

“We will stop the march at Manesar and won’t allow it to proceed further. We are already on alert since the protesting farmers from Punjab started arriving at the Haryana border. Necessary deployment will be made and the agitators will be asked to return,” he said, adding Section 144 of CrPC is in force in Delhi barring gatherings of five or more people.

“We will hold dialogues with the khap leaders so that they drop their plan and avoid taking the law into their own hands,” he added.