Farmers who have been protesting for over 15 months outside Delhi’s Singhu, Tikri, and Ghaziabad borders against the farm laws (now repealed) will end their protest today and return to their villages in Punjab and Haryana. Following the Center’s decision to repeal the three contentious farm laws, farmers held a victory march before returning to their homes to end the year-long protest.

According to reports, the farmers’ unions held a Fateh Ardas (victory prayer) at 5:30 p.m. on December 9 and a Fateh March (victory march) at 9 a.m. today at the Singhu and Tikri protest sites. Punjab farm leaders also plan to pay homage at the Golden Temple in Amritsar on December 13. On December 15, the Samyukta Kisan Morcha, or SKM, will conduct another meeting in Delhi.

Shiv Kumar Kakka, farmer leader and a member of the SKM’s empowered committee said that SKM will also honour those locals who generously assisted farmers throughout the agitation and strengthened the movement.

Senior farmer leaders and members of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) paid a visit to the Bangla Sahib gurdwara on Friday, a day before their scheduled departure from the protest camps near the Delhi border. The Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee honoured the farmer leaders, including Balbir Singh Rajewal, Rakesh Tikait, and Manjeet Singh Raye.

The Centre has also promised to dismiss all police charges against farmers, including stubble-burning complaints and those lodged by Haryana and Uttar Pradesh in connection with the violent confrontations with security personnel over the past several months. It has assured farmers that all lawsuits brought against them as a result of the protests will be dismissed immediately, and has urged all states to do the same.

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According to the Centre’s letter, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have agreed on a deal to compensate farmers who lost their lives during the protest, and Punjab has already released a statement about the same.

The Electricity Bill would be introduced only after all stakeholders, including SKM, have been consulted on the areas that impact farmers.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi today addressed the nation at 9 am that the centre is planning to cancel the three controversial farm laws that led to a widespread protest especially at a Singhu border for almost over a year. PM Modi said that the cabinet will take the decision in the upcoming parliament session.

This announcement comes ahead of state key elections and also on the auspicious festival of Sikhism, Guru Nanak Jayanti.

PM Modi said that these three laws were formed in order to empower and strengthen small farmers citing demand from economists, Agri experts and farmers. But the farmers were not in favour of these laws and have been protesting since the bills were passed.

PM Modi said that when becoming a PM in 2014, his topmost priority was looking after the welfare of the farmers and agricultural reforms. Adding further he said that majority of farmers in India are small scale farmers and this is the reason the government came up with a multifaceted approach from seed technology and crop production schemes.

PM Modi said that these laws were formed in favour of the farmers and they tried their best to convince them but it didn’t go well with the section of farmers and that is the reason centre will withdraw these three laws in the forthcoming parliament session.

PM Modi in an announcement also urged farmers to go call off their protest and return to their homes to start afresh.

The three bills were: Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 and Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill 2020.

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These bills were passed by President Ram Nath Kovind last year in September and since then the farmers have continued to express their disagreement against these bills.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the country before departing for Jhansi to hand over domestically manufactured military gear to the Indian armed forces on the final day of the ‘Rashtra Raksha Samparpan Parv’. PM Modi will also dedicate a number of new defence ministry projects to the country.

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