After setting the internet on fire with his Twitter fight with actress Kangana Ranaut, singer Diljit Dosanjh has joined the farmers protesting at the Singhu border with Delhi—calling on the government to accept their demands.
Addressing the farmers, Diljit said, “We have only one request to Centre..please fulfil the demands of our farmers. Everyone is sitting here peacefully and the entire country is with farmers,” ANI reported him as saying.
Diljit was joined by other Punjabi singers including Gurshabad Singh Kular and Harf Cheema, who sang songs at the protest to boost morale, according to Kular.
"I am not here to talk but only listen. You people are creating history once again. I used to listen to stories that Punjabis are full of energy but I'm witnessing it for the first time," Dosanjh said.
To the agitating farmers, his message was: Be patient and peaceful in your protests.
"This is the only way we can win this fight. Stories of these days will definitely be told in future," he said, while thanking the people who joined the protest from Haryana.
The Udta Punjab actor then turned to Hindi for the convenience of media persons present at the site.
Referring to his ugly war-of-words with Ranaut, Dosanjh said unlike the narrative being spread on Twitter, the farmers' agitation has been "peaceful".
"If you are listening to us, there's no other issue than that of farmers being talked about here. Please don't divert issues. The government should accept the demands of the farmers. "Everyone is sitting here peacefully, no one is talking about 'khoon-kharaba.' On Twitter, a lot of things happen, everything's twisted," he said.
Delhi: Singer & actor Diljit Singh Dosanjh addresses protesting farmers at Singhu border (Haryana-Delhi border)
— ANI (@ANI) December 5, 2020
"We have only one request to Centre..please fulfil the demands of our farmers. Everyone is sitting here peacefully & entire country is with farmers," he says pic.twitter.com/H5ax67QsBX
In addition, Punjabi singer ‘Singga’ has claimed, in an Instagram story, that Diljit donated Rs 1 crore worth of clothes to keep the farmers warm.
The protests at the border continued even as farmer union representatives held talks with the Centre in Delhi. Demanding nothing less than a full repeal of the farm laws, the union leaders held firm—prompting the Centre to seek another meeting with them ,this time on December 9, a day after the planned Bharat Bandh.
The farmers’ group ended their meeting with a vow of silence, seeking either a yes or no answer to their demand of repealing the laws. Agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar meanwhile urged to farmers to send back the elderly, women and children from the protest.
Diljit made headlines after his Twitter spat with Kangana. After the actress shared and then deleted a fake news story about an claiming an old lady at the protests was the octogenarian woman who made internatinoal headlines during the anti-CAA protests, Diljit corrected her in a reply. She then accused the singer of being “Karan Johar’s pet” to which he replied with a series of choice tweets in Punjabi. Accusing her of disrespecting the mothers and sisters, he told her to Google the punjabi he was using in his replies.
Diljit gained over four lakh followers on Twitter after his viral exchange with Kangana.
At the rally on Saturday, he made his address in Hindi, saying there would be no need to Google what he was saying this time.
With inputs from PTI
