Farmer’s Protest: Farmers Leave for Delhi to Take Part in a Tractor Rally

Farm unions who have launched mass agitation on the outskirts of the national capital representing tens of thousands of farmers, primarily from Punjab and Haryana are demanding that three laws approved by Parliament in September should be repealed by the government.

On Sunday, the farmers' rally against the three controversial farm bills arrived on day 52. The Bhartiya Kisan Union urged the Supreme Court in an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court on Saturday to suspend the three members of a panel appointed by the high court to address the impasse over the new farm laws between the protesting farmers and the Union government.

The Bhartiya Kisan Union, Lokshakti, said,' By creating these individuals as members, the concept of natural justice would be violated. Members named by the Supreme Court will hear farmers on fair parameters because these three farm laws have already been endorsed.'

The union has called for the election of a retired justice of the Supreme Court along with farm representatives to the panel of protesting farmers' unions.

The ninth round of government-farm union talks on Friday finished in a deadlock with the next round scheduled for 19 January. Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar urged farmers to be flexible during the conference, saying that the government was accommodative and that some demands had already been approved. The farm unions, like many prior rounds of talks, insisted that the government agree to a full rollback of the rules.