Congress won’t relent till Centre repeals ‘black’ laws, says Rahul

Senior Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra led a protest march towards Delhi lieutenant governor Anil Baijal’s residence on Friday, in solidarity with the farmers protesting against the new legislation.

The Congress was observing ‘Kisan Adhikar Divas’ (farmers’ rights day) across the country, where all state units were asked to congregate at Raj Bhavans to protest the new farm laws.

Gandhi asserted that the new laws will “destroy” them.

“Congress will stand by the farmers in their protest as the three agricultural laws have been passed to destroy them, and help and benefit the big industrialists,” Gandhi said.

“Prime Minister Modi doesn’t respect farmers and wants to tire out those protesting against the Centre’s agriculture laws. The BJP government will have to take these black laws back,” news agency PTI quoted him as saying.

Reacting to this, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh said: “The Congress manifesto in 2019 itself had promised these reforms and therefore, Sonia and Rahul Gandhi should tell us whether they were lying then or are lying now.”

Thousands of farmers, mainly from Punjab and Haryana, have launched a mass agitation on the borders of the national Capital, demanding the repeal of the laws. While several of them marched towards Baijal’s residence, the Delhi Police stopped the protestors by barricading the route. This also led to a face-off between the two sides, during which senior Congress leader Alka Lamba was allegedly injured.

However, Anto Alphonse, DCP (north), said that Lamba was not assaulted by the police. “She had a string entwined in her hand. The string was tied to balloons and a placard. In the melee that happened in the crowd, she may have got injured by the string tied to her hand. We have video evidence for this,” he said.

Meanwhile, in Chandigarh, former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, and in Uttar Pradesh, Congress chief Ajay Kumar Lallu and other workers were allegedly taken into custody during the protest.