Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said that protesting farmers will not leave until the three contentious agriculture reform laws are repealed. The comments came after a three-member delegation, comprising the former Congress president, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary and Ghulam Nabi Azad met President Ram Nath Kovind, seeking his intervention in the ongoing farmers’ agitation, ANI reported.  

Speaking to the media after meeting the President, Gandhi said, “I told the President that these farm laws are anti-farmer. The country has seen that farmers have stood up against these laws.”

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“I want to tell the PM that these farmers are not going to go back home until these farm laws are repealed. The government should convene a joint session of Parliament and take back these laws. Opposition parties stand with farmers and labourers,” he said. 

Launching a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Gandhi said, “PM Modi is making money for the crony capitalists. Whoever will try to stand against him will be called terrorist, be it farmers, labourers and even Mohan Bhagwat.”

He further said that there is “no democracy in India” and that the Prime Minister is an “incompetent man who does not understand anything and running a system on the behalf of 3 or 4 other people who understand everything”.  

Earlier, the Delhi police imposed section 144 CrPC around the Rashtrapati Bhavan and said that the Congress did not have the permission to hold such their protest march, detaining several Congress leaders, including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, KC Venugopal and Randeep Surjewala, among others.

“No permission has been granted for Congress’ march to Rashtrapati Bhavan today,” Additional DCP (New Delhi) Deepak Yadav told ANI. 

The statement came even as Gandhi, accompanied by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, was meeting senior leaders at party headquarters, 24, Akbar Road.

Gandhi led a march from Vijay Chowk to Rashtrapati Bhavan to submit to the President a memorandum containing 2 crore signatures seeking his intervention in farm laws issue.

Party spokesperson Surjewala, referring to the protest march,  tweeted, “today is a big day in farmers’ fight for justice.”

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Meanwhile, Congress leader and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor said that they “want the government to atone” for not consulting with the farmers before passing the three laws in September.

“We will march to Rashtrapati Bhavan. We want the government to atone for their complete lack of consulting farmers before passing these bills. I think the President has an important moral role in encouraging and guiding the government to not stand on their legislative pride,” Tharoor said.

The Congress began their nationwide campaign to collect signatures from farmers, farm labourers and other stakeholders on an appeal addressed to the President in opposition against the three legislations in September.

The former Congress president had earlier undertaken a ‘Tractor Yatra’ campaign across Punjab and Haryana as part of the party’s campaign against the contentious laws.

Thousands of farmers have been camping at various border sites around the national capital for over four weeks now, demanding a complete repeal of the three laws over fears they will eliminate the Minimum Support Price (MSP) and the mandi system, leaving them at the mercy of big corporates.

However, the government has touted these laws as major reforms and have assured to keep the MSP system intact. At least five rounds of talks between leaders of farmers unions and the government have not yielded concrete results and a the next meeting is yet to be held.