Farmers now block Chilla border, choke Delhi-Noida artery

NOIDA: The farmers’ agitation has choked more border points, on Tuesday adding Chilla – the capital’s boundary with Noida – where more than 200 protesters have pledged to camp till the Centre meets their demands of setting up a Kisan Ayog and formulating a law guaranteeing minimum support price for their produce.
The farmers drove down in tractor-trolleys from various west UP districts in groups, down the Yamuna and Noida expressways, before congregating at the Chilla border around 4.15pm on Tuesday, choking the Delhi-Noida artery and throwing peak-hour traffic via Noida gate out of gear.With Delhi and Noida police diverting Noida-bound traffic towards DND loop – taking the wrong side, using the Noida-Delhi lane – the route is likely to remain heavily clogged during the course of the agitation.
The Chilla agitation will have a much bigger impact on traffic than the other protest site on the Delhi-UP borders, at Gazipur (UP Gate), because the latter is on the service lanes of the Delhi-Meerut Expressway, which is much wider and access-controlled. Farmers are also camping in large groups at Delhi’s Singhu and Tikri borders with Haryana.
If farmers in another 1,200 tractors do join them, as the Chilla protesters have claimed, the impact on traffic will be much bigger from Wednesday. Led by Bharatiya Kisan Union (Bhanu), the farmers gathered at the Delhi-Noida border have come from Etah, Hathras, Hapur, Muzaffarnagar, Bulandshahr and Noida.
BKU (Bhanu) president Bhanu Pratap Singh told TOI the farmer only wants to be in the field but has been forced to take to the streets. “The farmer is a slave of politicians. We vote for them and they get everything through our vote. But when they come to office, they work in favour of capitalists. For years, we have been demanding a Kisan Ayog but to no avail. We want the PM to answer how the three farm laws will benefit us,” Singh said.
The protesters also condemned the references to ‘Khalistani elements’, alluding to Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar’s statement about the state government having inputs about “some unwanted elements” raising pro-Khalistan slogans during the ongoing protests. “The farmers were mistreated, hit with tear gas shells. Are we terrorists? Can’t we go to our own capital? A rumour is being spread that we want to gherao Parliament. They think farmers are terrorists, links are being drawn to Khalistan but let us tell them we are not, that we are farmers producing wheat that even you have to eat,” said Jeet Kamal Solanki, national secretary of the outfit.
The protesters said a Kisan Aayog with farmers as members should be constituted and given the job of fixing the selling price of farm produce. “Only farmers should have the right to fix the first and last MSP. Action should be taken against anyone buying at a price lower than MSP,” BKU (Bhanu) vice-president Dr Tarun Sharma said.
Noida police officers held talks with the protesters to persuade them to vacate the border but were rebuffed. Traffic diversions were effected after that near the Sector 14A DCP office. In the evening, with traffic on the route choked, many commuters got off public transport and walked.
One of them was Komal Kumari, who works with a private company in Noida’s Sector 1. She got off her office bus and walked towards Mayur Vihar to catch an auto for Akshardham. Seema, who was travelling to Noida from Delhi in a DTC bus, said she had started walking after the bus stopped near Chilla in hope of finding an auto to Sorkha.
The protesters, meanwhile, have come prepared with food and clothes, like their counterparts at the other borders, ready for the long haul if needed.