NEW DELHI, Jan 6: The agitating farmers of Punjab who blocked the road holding up Narendra Modi’s motorcade to Ferozepur on Wednesday, said they had no idea that the prime minister would be passing that way. Though informed by the police after they started their roadblock, they said they did not believe them. The prime minister, they said, should have just “sent someone and asked us to move.”
“We thought the police were trying to remove us from the road. There is a helipad built for the PM that side so why would he come by the road? The police were trying to trick us, we thought,” one of the protesters said on Thursday.
Led by a faction the Bharatiya Kisan Union, the farmers say they were initially on way to the Ferozepur Deputy Commissioner’s office to hold a protest. But they were stopped by the police on account of the PM’s rally. The farmers then blocked the road, stopping the cars of BJP leaders and buses carrying party supporters.
“We had no idea at the time that the PM will be coming this way. When the police told us, around 20 minutes after we sat down on the road, we did not believe them,” a leader of the BKU Krantikari farmers’ union said.
On Wednesday, while on way to address a political rally in Ferozepur, Modi was stuck on a flyover in Punjab’s Bathinda for around 20 minutes. The security lapse has caused a major political conflagration between the BJP and the state’s ruling Congress and the matter has reached the Supreme Court on Thursday. The Punjab government has ordered an inquiry into it.
The protesters said they had no idea that the Prime Minister had come, was just several hundred meters away and had to turn back after finding the road blocked. “When we were on our way back, around 3.30 pm, then some people told us,” he said. “It is possible that even the police had no advance information, or they would not have allowed us here. They did not allow us to protest anywhere near the rally ground,” he added.
Asked about the Prime Minister’s cavalcade being stuck on the flyover, the leader said the PM “could have just sent someone and asked us to move.” Asked about the safety concerns therein for the Prime Minister, he said that was not possible. “This not that kind of atmosphere. This is a peaceful place. Not like some other state. The Prime Minister drove 120-130 km till this spot,” he said.
(Manas Dasgupta)
