Chandigarh: The Punjab unit of the Congress on Tuesday lodged a strong protest with Haryana Chief Minister M L Khattar over denial of permission for a ‘tractor rally’, organised by the party’s youth wing against the Centre’s farm bills, to pass through the state. In a letter to Khattar, state Congress chief Sunil Jakhar said Punjab Youth Congress had announced the protest on September 20 against the Centre’s “anti-farmer laws”. Under this, a tractor rally comprising protesters and farmers, which started from Punjab, was to reach Delhi after passing through Haryana, he wrote. “But it was a matter of great regret and sadness that the Haryana government didn’t allow the Youth Congress workers to go to Delhi by stopping the rally at the Ambala border in a very undemocratic manner. “The move was not in line with the fair administrative working, so it was painful. Haryana and Punjab have always acted like brothers and maintained a fair relationship,” Jakhar, who had also joined the rally, wrote in the letter, according to a party release.
Jakhar said “the central government enacted black-laws that violate the interests of the farmers. Now by stripping them (farmers) of their right to protest, the Haryana government under Khattar’s leadership has insulted the great freedom fighters who sacrificed lives for freedom of this country”. Jakhar told the Haryana CM that “if he looks into his heart and hears the inner voice of conscience, he will agree that the black laws will have the worst impact on the farmers of Punjab as well as Haryana”. He hoped from Khattar that the Haryana government “will avoid reoccurrence of such undemocratic actions in the future, and respect the spirit of the Constitution as well as the pain of the farmers”.
While Bharatiya Kisan Union, supported by some farmers’ bodies, were holding a protest in Haryana against the Centre’s farm bills on Sunday, Punjab Youth Congress workers had started a “tractor rally” on the same day from Mohali district which was to culminate in Delhi. However, when the rally reached Haryana’s border in Ambala, Haryana Police used a water cannon to stop Congress workers from entering the district and travelling ahead to Delhi.
Indian Youth Congress president Srinivas B V had also taken part in the tractor rally.
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