NEW DELHI: Amid heightened police presence at Singhu and Ghazipur borders to get them vacated of the farmers who are agitating against the new agricultural laws, Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi on Thursday alleged that farmers are being threatened.
In a series of tweets in Hindi, she said: “From midnight yesterday there was a effort to finish the agitation by force, today the farmers at the Ghazipur and Singhu borders are being threatened. This is against democratic norms. The Congress will stand with the farmers in this struggle. Those who want to break them are traitors…
“Strict action should be taken against violent elements, but the whole nation is behind those farmers who are agitating peacefully.”
Her brother and former Congress President Rahul Gandhi, in a tweet in Hindi, said: “Time has come to take sides. My decision is clear. I am siding with democracy and the farmers and their peaceful protest.”
The comments came after the Uttar Pradesh government has ordered the district administrations to get all the farmers protest site on the state’s borders with Delhi vacated, officials said on Thursday.
The orders came two days after violence during the ‘Kisan Gantantra parade’ on the occasion of the Republic Day at several locations in the national capital.
At the Singhu border, the protesters camping at the site have been cornered to a designated area near the central stage, while the key routes connecting Delhi and Haryana around the border were blocked on Thursday.