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Thousands of tractors, women and youth: Farmers reveal plans for R-Day rally

Rehearsals for the tractor rally are continuing across Punjab

tractor rally rehearsal gurugram pti Farmers conduct tractor rally rehearsal in Gurugram | PTI

Even as the Narendra Modi government has offered to suspend implementation of the three contentious agriculture laws, protesting farmers' groups are going ahead with preparations for their high-profile 'tractor rally' in Delhi on Republic Day (January 26).

The farmers' groups that have been protesting against the three contentious laws have been planning to use the tractor rally to highlight their campaign to a global audience.

The Indian Express reported on Thursday "thousands of tractors" would take part in the rally from multiple directions on Delhi's borders.

Harinder Kaur Bindu, vice-president, BKU (Ekta Ugrahan), told The Indian Express, “The details are being worked out but as the preliminary discussions, the tractor parade will have four tiers. The first tier will be led by the union leaders who are holding talks with the government. The second will led by women farmers. The third tier will have the youth, while volunteers and others will make the fourth tier."

Interestingly, during hearing of pleas against the farm laws at the Supreme Court, Chief Justice S.A. Bobde on January 11 requested lawyers of the farmers' unions to persuade women, children and the elderly involved in the stir to go home.

The Indian Express reported "The tractors will move from Tikri, Singhu, Shahjahanpur, Palwal and Ghajipur borders on to Delhi’s Outer Ring Road with tableaus displaying the plight of farmers."

Most of the tractors at the rally would be "those that are currently on way to the borders from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand".

“Not more than 10 per cent of the tractors already parked at the protest sites on Delhi borders will take part in the parade. The tractors and trolleys parked at the borders are our home away from home and we don’t want to empty out the dharna sites. The protests at these sites will go on as usual,” Jagseer Singh Kothaguru, a farmers’ leader from BKU (Ugrahan) group, told The Indian Express. The publication quoted a farmers' leader as saying “rehearsals for the parade continued at more than 500 villages in Punjab. Another 200 villages will do the rehearsals Thursday”.

The 10th round of negotiations between the Modi government and the farmers' unions, held on Wednesday, ended on an optimistic note as the government proposed to suspend the implementation of the three laws for up to two years and set up a panel comprising farmers to study the objections. The farmers' leaders, though, insisted on repeal of the three laws. They told the government that they will consider the proposal among themselves and return to announce their decision during the next meeting scheduled for January 22.

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