While the farmers are gearing up for the Republic Day Tractors’ March in Delhi, in Mumbai thousands of their brothers and sisters gathered at Azad Maidan on Monday to register their protest against the three farm laws and extend support to the country-wide movement in this regard. Later a delegation of 23 farmers was allowed to submit a petition to Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari (who was himself out of station) at Raj Bhawan situated just over half a kilometre away.
In fact, as per the protocol the delegation was taken in a police van to Raj Bhawan.
The farmers, who got the support of the Nationalist Congress Party, Congress, Shiv Sena and all the other parties possibly barring the BJP, have converged from 21 districts of Maharashtra. They started their march to Mumbai on the birth anniversary of Netaji on January 23.
Unlike a non-political gathering in Delhi, leaders of political parties were invited in Mumbai.
Speaking on the occasion the NCP leader Sharad Pawar, himself a former Union agriculture minister, asked as to why the Governor is in Goa when he should be here in Mumbai. Mr. Koshyari, it needs to be mentioned, has been given the additional charge of Goa too.
Meanwhile, according to media reports from Uttar Pradesh farmers heading for Delhi on tractors are being prevented from doing so by the police. So, many of them are travelling from their places on buses and trains. The farmers complained that at several places the petrol pump stations are not giving diesel to tractors at the instruction of police.
Notwithstanding such obstacles thousands of tractors and lakhs of farmers from various states are likely to assemble on the border with Delhi on January 26.
