Agitating farmers camping at the Punjab-Haryana border have announced that they will be blocking train routes on Thursday between 12pm to 4pm to escalate their protests seeking scrapping of new farm laws. The ‘Rail Roko’ protest is likely to disrupt services on several key routes including Bathinda-Barnala, Ludhiana-Jakhal-Delhi, Rajpura-Delhi and Amritsar-Fatehgarh Sahib.
Amidst these, CBSE exams starts today across India.
This comes even as three union ministers – Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal and Minister of State for Commerce Som Parkash – are set to hold another round of talks with farmer leaders at 5pm in Chandigarh to break the deadlock. But farmers are unfazed and remain firm on pushing their demands.
The intensified protests have already severely hit road traffic, with the Delhi-Sonipat route at Singhu border and the Bahadurgarh route via Tikri border remaining suspended amid heavy police deployment since Tuesday. Commuters have been forced to walk across borders on foot as buses cannot proceed further.
Political Efforts on to Defuse Crisis As farmers dug in heels after rejecting the Centre’s offer to set up a committee to look into issues raised by them, efforts are on to politically resolve the standoff. The scheduled ministerial meeting follows an appeal by Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to Home Minister Amit Shah seeking his personal intervention.
Several opposition parties are also supporting the farmers’ demands while criticizing the government, hoping to corner the BJP-ruled Centre on the issue. But the government has held its ground so far on the new laws it claims will benefit farmers. It remains to be seen if today’s talks yield a breakthrough as more states join the stir.
