Numbers swell, Khattar warns of Covid spike

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 29

The local administrations in Sonepat and Jhajjar have started making arrangements for mobile toilets and medical facilities and begun distributing face masks and sanitisers among the protesting farmers. With entry points to Delhi through the Singhu and the Bahadurgarh-Tikri borders sealed, there was a surge on the Haryana-Delhi border with farmers from Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand joining the agitation today.

The traffic on NH-44 remained paralysed and a number of vehicles carrying perishables, including milk, were stranded. Even as local farmers chipped in with ration and set up medical facilities for the protesting farmers, an angry Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar warned that he would hold his Punjab counterpart Capt Amarinder Singh responsible, if the farmers’ gathering on the state’s borders with Delhi led to any aggravation of the Covid-19 situation.

Meanwhile, senior Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda slammed the Haryana CM for his remark that Haryana farmers were not part of the stir against the new farm laws, warning of a “bigger movement” if the farmers’ problems were not solved soon.