Farmers organise tractor parades in Punjab and Haryana against NPFAM draft

Farmers organise tractor parades in Punjab and Haryana against NPFAM draft, demanding withdrawal and support from political parties.

Tractor parades were staged by farmers in response to the call given by various organisations, including the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), Samyukt Kisan Morcha-Non-Political (SKM-NP) and Kisan Mazdoor Morcha (KMM), across Punjab and Haryana on Sunday (January 26, 2025), expressing their anger against the draft National Policy Framework on Agricultural Marketing (NPFAM).

Held at subdivision levels, tractor parades supported by the central trade unions also raised long-standing issues, including legal guarantee for procurement on Minimum Support Price, debt waiver, and withdrawal of pro-corporate labour codes.

In a press statement, SKM Haryana said the tractor and motorcycle parades were staged in different parts of Haryana, including Sirsa, Fatehabad, Hisar, Bhiwani, Dadri, Jind, Kaithal, Karnal, Panipat, Ambala, Yamuna Nagar, Kurukshetra, and Palwal.

Farmer leaders described the draft as an actual reincarnation of the three farm laws that the Modi government had to repeal under pressure from the farmers’ struggle during 2020-21.

Kisan Sabha vice-president and SKM leader Inderjit Singh, addressing the farmers before the tractor parade at the Rohtak grains market, said, “The foundations of the Indian republic epitomised in the Constitution were facing every potential assault when the nation was celebrating its 76th Republic Day. The NPFAM draft was another assault on the State’s rights as a fresh bid to hand over a vast network of agriculture markets, which came into being under the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act enacted by the Provincial Assembly in 1939, aimed at ending the ruthless exploitation of the peasantry. Now, instead of strengthening these market committees, the Modi government was bent on finishing off the mandis, which was unacceptable,” Mr. Singh said.

In Punjab, farmers led by the SKM, SKM (NP) and KMM, among others, held separate tractor parades in various districts, including Amritsar, Bathinda, Mohali, Ludhiana, and Malerkotla. The protests remained by and large peaceful, with farmers parking their tractors outside shopping malls and retail outlets in Amritsar, and also hitting the national highways in some parts of the State.

The SKM had in its general body national meeting at New Delhi on January 24-25 decided to carry out a long-drawn agitation for the withdrawal of the NPFAM, based on wider, issue-based unity. Political parties would also be requested to extend support, and “pucca morchas” will be set up at the State, district and subdivision levels across the country which would be even more powerful and widespread than the previous struggle, the press statement said.