Don’t yield, we’re with you: Rahul to farmers

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 29

Opposition leaders today backed the massive farmers’ mobilisation along Delhi’s borders and at Muzaffarnagar with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi urging the protesters: “Do not retreat even by an inch. We are with you. If the PM thinks the farmers’ will go back, he is mistaken. He must resolve the matter and the only way to do so is to throw the farm laws in a waste paper basket, failing which this agitation will spread to cities, villages and across segments.”

Rahul called the government’s attempt to get the protest sites vacated as “criminal.” Refusing to comment on the farmers’ role in the Republic Day violence, he asked, “Who allowed 50 protesters to storm the Red Fort?”

Earlier in the day, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal arranged water supply to the Ghazipur protest site where BKU leader Rakesh Tikait is on a dharna.

Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Badal too announced support for the agitating farmers as did former Uttar Pradesh Chief Ministers Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party and Mayawati of the BSP.

Meanwhile, the BJP accused Rahul of “inciting violence” after he warned the Narendra Modi government that if farmers’ protest was not defused, the agitation would spread throughout the country.