Protesting farmers, with the tricolour fluttering atop tractors, loud protest songs and speeches blaring from the speakers, blocked the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway at Haryana’s Palwal toll plaza on Saturday to mark 100 days of the agitation that started on November 26 2020.
Security has been heightened in the area as the farmers blocked the Palwal toll plaza on the six-lane expressway by squatting on the road in the scorching heat. In these 100 days, the farmers have braved harsh weather conditions, but remained firm on their demands.
Palwal toll plaza, almost 85 km from Delhi, marks the start of the 136-km expressway which ends at Kundli. Farmers will block the way from 11 am to 4 pm to mark 100 days of protest against the Centre’s three farm laws.
The agitated farmers chanted anti-government slogans as they marched from their protest site, two km away from the toll plaza.
The blockade led to the disruption of traffic at the toll stations. Many commuters said that they did not know about the protest. Few of them were allowed to go and the rest were turned back.
The six-lane KMP expressway, inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November 2018, has 10 tolled entry and exit points, 52 underpasses and 23 overpasses.
It was built to decongest the ever-busy roads of Delhi, especially by reducing the number of trucks entering the national capital, thus helping to curb pollution.
Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, have been camping at the Delhi border points — Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur to demand a complete repeal of laws, enacted in September, last year.