Cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Sidhu was stopped by Delhi Police on Wednesday as he was about to enter the national capital to participate in ‘relay dharna’ led by Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh at Jantar Mantar to highlight the issues of the farmers and seek immediate restoration of goods trains.
After heated arguments at the Singhu border, Sidhu and his cavalcade were allowed to enter Delhi. He was accompanying Congress legislator Amrinder Singh Raja Warring.
Likewise, other legislators from Punjab were stopped at the entry point in Delhi.
Later Sidhu told the media that he was in Delhi to participate in the cause of farmers.
Describing the Centre’s farm laws as an “attack on the federal structure”, Sidhu said these black laws would ruin the farming community and others associated with the agrarian economy.
“The Central government is robbing the rights of our farmers…We have empathy not sympathy with them,” he added.
The Chief Minister has announced that he will lead a relay ‘dharna’ of Congress MLAs at the Rajghat on Wednesday to highlight the state’s “power crisis and critical essential supplies” situation amid the Centre’s alleged adamant refusal to allow movement of goods trains due to farmers’ agitation.
The Chief Minister said that Punjab had run out of coal, urea and DAP, and other essential supplies due to the Indian Railway’s decision not to ply goods trains even after the farmers eased their blockade to allow such movement.
As the crisis resulted in a complete shutdown of all power plants as well as curtailment of agricultural and vegetable supplies, the Chief Minister said, he had decided to hold a “symbolic relay dharna” to bring the state’s grim situation to the Centre’s notice.
The Chief Minister had earlier failed to get an appointment with President Ram Nath Kovind on the agriculture-related amendment Bills.
