Panchkula: The strength of farmers sitting in protest against the three contentious farm laws at Delhi’s Tikri and Kundli borders has reduced by over 67 per cent in the last three months, data available with the Haryana Police shows.
While the police claim that the agitation may be facing a “crisis”, farmer leaders say the numbers are dwindling owing to the pandemic and because they haven’t been asked to gather. The farm leaders said they can bring together “lakhs of people on one call” but are “mindful of the coronavirus situation”.
According to Haryana Police data, however, crowds started thinning in February. At the time, there were at least 80,000 farmers at the two borders. The strength reduced to 26,000 in May — 16,000 farmers at Tikri and 9,000 at Kundli.
‘Waiting for situation to improve’
During November and December, there were over 56,000 farmers at the two borders, which swelled to 3 lakh on 26 January, during the tractor rally.
Speaking to ThePrint, Manoj Yadava, DGP, Haryana, said many farmers went home in April to harvest crops but did not return to the borders, which led to a dip in numbers.
“Since February 2021 we have noticed a continuous decline in the number of farmers at the Tikri and Kundli borders. Many of the farmers who had gone home to harvest their crops in the month of April have not returned despite the end of the harvesting season,” Yadava said.
Darshan Pal, leader of All India Kisan Union, however, countered.
“First they say don’t gather at protest sites due to the spread of corona. Now they are saying numbers have dipped and making it sound as if the agitation is fizzling out. The numbers are down because we have not given out any call or appeal for people to gather because of the surge in Covid cases in the country,” Pal said.
“They are mistaken if they think that the enthusiasm to fight has died down. If we want to gather people, we will just give one call and 10 lakh people will come and not even one inch of space will be left at Delhi’s borders. Right now, since we do not plan to do anything more … it is safe for people to be wherever they feel comfortable,” Pal added.
Gurnam Singh Charuni, leader of the Haryana unit of Bharatiya Kisan Union also told ThePrint that no call was being given due to the Covid situation.
“We are just waiting for the situation to improve. We have been conducting programmes locally, which has seen massive participation by villagers,” Charuni said.
According to the Haryana Police data, accessed by ThePrint, the movement of farmers to the borders and back home was leading to an “abnormal rise in deaths across these villages in the state”.
When asked if the drop in numbers at borders meant that the farmers were getting aware of the Covid situation, Yadava said, “The movement of farmers is still happening. Farmers from many districts are still Leaving for joining the SKM Dharna at Tikri and Kundli but the numbers are not as much as they were before. This is borne out of the thinning out of crowds at the borders.”
Also read: Haryana’s Chautala village sent hundreds to farm protests. Then Covid cases, deaths piled up
Focus on decentralising protests, say farmers
DGP Yadava also said that the farm leaders have been “trying to bolster numbers at the protest sites” by giving calls to gather people in Haryana, but it has not been working. He said that the people do gather at toll nakas to show solidarity, but do not reach the Delhi borders.
“We have also noticed that the leaders are trying to bolster the numbers at dharna sites, but without any success. Although they managed to mobilise and collect people at Bastara toll plaza in Karnal recently, most of those who started either did not reach the border at Kundli or returned back by evening,” he said.
Pal, however, said that they never attempted to take people to the borders as now their plan is now to “decentralise” the protest and make it a “nation-wide phenomenon”. This, Pal said, means having smaller protest sites like the one at Khatkar toll plaza in Hissar.
“We are focusing on decentralising our programme so that we can spread this to the whole nation. The model of Punjab and Haryana will now be implemented in UP and even Uttarakhand. This agitation will even reach Southern parts of India,” he said.
Pal added that they have also written a letter to the Modi government to resume talks as they too want a solution.
“We were, we are and we will be ready for talks. We even wrote to the government after we completed six months of the agitation. If the government is so concerned, why don’t they just solve this issue once and for all? Because if that does not happen, this agitation will go on.”
(Edited by Neha Mahajan)
Also read: Protesting farmers call Covid ‘govt conspiracy’ as Haryana blames them for surging deaths