The ongoing farmers’ protest in Delhi, Haryana and Punjab borders against the contentious farm laws spread to Bengal on Saturday with hundreds in Hooghly and Howrah taking over toll plazas for a few hours in the day and allowing vehicles to pass without having to pay tax, while demanding the laws be scrapped.

Farmers’ unions agitating on Delhi borders had given a call to supporters to take over toll plazas across the country and allow free movement of vehicles on Saturday to escalate their agitation after several rounds of talks with the Modi government stayed inconclusive.

The impact of the “takeover toll plaza” call in Bengal is significant as the BJP-led Centre has been trying to downplay the ongoing farmers’ protest as “discontentment” in two or three states only, and projecting the laws as major reforms in the agriculture sector.

“If we don’t protest now, we will be forced to buy flour or rice at Rs 500 per kilo as multi-national companies will dictate the price mechanism and create artificial scarcity because the new laws have removed the cap on hoarding,” said a protester among the 300, including women, who joined the social service outfit Sikh Sangat to take over the toll plaza in Hooghly’s Dankuni on NH2 for around three hours.

People shouted anti-farm-law slogans and waved placards demanding the laws be scrapped.

Similar protests were held at toll plazas at Dulagarh and Bally in Howrah. Sources said that around 500 people in all reached Dulagarh and Bally.

Around 150 members of trade union fronts of the CPM and the Congress — Citu and Intuc, respectively — took over the toll plaza on Vidyasagar Setu (second Hooghly bridge) in the afternoon.

Baldish Singh, a member of the Sikh Sangat, who protested at the Dankuni toll plaza, said the ongoing peasant movement was “everybody’s”.

“Farmers who are protesting against these new farm bills in Delhi and elsewhere are representing not just the farming community but the people of the entire country. The farm laws will harm farmers as well as common people as the price of agricultural produce will spike once multinational companies step in. People must come out in support of the farmers,” Singh said.

A toll plaza employee in Dankuni said toll collection had been hit for two hours only — not more — and the protesters did not use force to stop tax collection. He added that the toll plaza employees had accepted the proposal of the protesters to stop collecting toll tax.

“A group of people came and appealed to us to stop collecting toll tax for a few hours. We agreed and toll tax collection was stopped from 11.30am to 1.30pm. We lost around Rs 4-5 lakh because of the protest,” said toll collection agency official at Dankuni .

Though political parties did not directly participate in Saturday’s protest, those opposed to the farm laws welcomed the movement to take over toll plazas across Bengal.

“We are taking an active part in the protests demanding the repeal of these farm laws and therefore we support the Sikh Sangat’s show of solidarity with the farmers at Dankuni toll plaza,” said Debabrata Ghosh, CPM’s Hooghly district committee president.