Farmers organised panchayats at 10 places in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur district on Saturday and pledged to continue the protests against the three farm laws till the Narendra Modi government repealed them.

At several places, the attendance at the rallies was in excess of 10,000.

Earlier, the farmers’ organisations had planned to hold a big panchayat in Saharanpur city after Saturday’s chakka jam but altered the plan after farm leader Rakesh Tikait announced that Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand would be kept out of the purview of the strike for fear of orchestrated violence to discredit the movement.

Also, as farmers would be busy in their fields and might not be able to travel to the city, the need was felt to hold panchayats in several areas across the district.

Chaudhary Vinay Kumar, vice-president of the Uttar Pradesh unit of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Tikait), said: “We worked round the clock for the past week for the success of the chakka jam. We had also planned to hold a mahapanchayat in the afternoon. But it was decided at the eleventh hour that the chakka jam would not be implemented in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Also, a large number of peasants would be transporting their sugarcane harvest to mills and they shouldn’t be disturbed. So, we quickly resolved to organise 10 panchayats in the districts. It was a huge success as on an average 8,000 farmers were present at each of the panchayats.”

Kumar said the panchayats were held at those points where the farmers had planned to organise the chakka jam. At several of the places the attendance was over 10,000, such as at Shahjahanpur-Ambala Road in Sarsawa, Manoharpur-Dehradun Road in Biharigarh, Nagla-Muzaffarnagar Road in Nagla, Tikraul-Nanauta Road in Deoband, Vikasnagar-Behat Road in Mirzapur and Gagalheri-Bhagwanpur Road in Gagalheri. “The speakers pledged to continue with the protests at Delhi’s borders till the Centre realises its mistakes and withdraws the controversial laws,” Kumar said.

Amit Mukhiya, a farmer leader in Saharanpur, said: “We have understood from our successful panchayats that such events should be held across the country. There was constructive debate on the three farm laws. The farmers were of the view that they should keep holding more such panchayats at the village level every day and keep an eye on the developments at Delhi’s borders where massive dharnas are going on. We should be ready to reach the borders if the government uses force to remove the protesters from there.”

Farmers’ mahapanchayats in Uttar Pradesh against the farm laws have been drawing massive crowds.