On Tuesday, a section of the protesting farmer broke the police barricades at Ghazipur, Singhu, and Tikri borders, and entered New Delhi ahead of the agreed time for the tractor rally. According to a few reports, hundreds of farmers - mostly youth - removed the barricades forcefully and entered the National Capital.
According to the initial reports, the youth also defied the conditions put by the farmers' unions for the ‘Kisan Gantantra Parade,’ as they played loud music and rode the tractors at high speed on the highway.
Delhi Police on Sunday allowed the tractor rally on the condition that the farmers could not disrupt the celebrations at Rajpath.
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A senior police officer told IANS that farmers began their rally before the scheduled time - between 12 pm and 5 pm.
A farmer leader told IANS, "A few farmers removed the barricades at the Singhu and Tikri borders and started their march into Delhi. However, the 'official' tractor parade is yet to start."
Kisan Congress Vice Chairman, Surender Solanki, who is leading a protest by farmers at the Tikri border, said, "Thousands of farmers have been assembling at the Tikri border since 3 am today for the tractor parade." He further added, "Around 6 am, we began our tractor parade with hundreds of tractors. And we also removed the barricades put at the Jharoda border."
Thousands of farmers gathered at eight points at the Delhi-Haryana and Delhi-Uttar Pradesh borders on Tuesday, ahead of the tractor march to protest the three new central agricultural laws.
On Monday, the farmers' unions said that their tractor parade will start only after the official Republic Day parade on Rajpath concludes. They also claimed that around 2,00,000 tractors were expected to participate in the parade in a show of strength.
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Thousands of farmers from Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh have been protesting at the several borders of the National Capital since November 26 last year demanding repealing of three contentious farm laws passed in September to ensure minimum support price (MSP) for their produce.
Eleven rounds of talks of the government and the farmers have remained inconclusive as farmers also rejected the government's proposal to suspend the three farm laws for one and half years. Farmers want a complete rollback of the three laws.
(With Inputs from IANS)
