DW BUREAU / Moga Punjab MLA and former state cabinet minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on Sunday attended a tractor rally led by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi here to protest the Centre's new farm laws. Gandhi arrived here on Sunday for holding tractor rallies across Punjab from October 4 to 6. The rallies, named 'Kheti Bachao Yatra', would cover more than 50 km in various districts and constituencies in three days. Sidhu's participation in the rally came three days after All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in-charge of Punjab affairs Harish Rawat met him at his residence in Amritsar. After the meeting, Rawat said the cricketer-turned-politician would attend the tractor rallies. Addressing a public gathering here, Sidhu slammed the BJP-led Centre over the farm laws termed them an "attack on federal structure". "They (BJP government) are robbing us of our rights," he said, adding the Centre had imposed a "system which had failed in Europe and the US". These new legislations would adversely affect five lakh labourers and 30,000 commissioned agents, Sidhu claimed. When Punjab Cabinet Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa on the stage asked Sidhu to cut short his speech, he replied, "Brother, do not stop me today." Slamming the BJP-led Centre over the issue of farm laws, Sidhu said the Union government has turned "ungrateful" and was "trying to take away" fixed income of farmers. "This government intends to give everything to capitalists. I protest the black laws with my black turban," he said. Where would farmers go when the mandi system is "snatched", Sidhu posed, adding the farmers were on the roads because they felt threatened that their MSP would be "taken away" with these new laws. "How can small farmers fight the capitalists? This country is being run by capitalists," he alleged. Alleging that the Centre waived Rs 5 lakh crore of capitalists every year, he asked, "What was given to farmers? Nothing". Sidhu expressed displeasure over protesters not being allowed to cross Haryana and water cannons were used against them. The Punjab government should give MSP on pulses and oilseeds to farmers, he said. Later, Rahul Gandhi along with Amarinder Singh rode on a tractor driven by Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar. AICC general secretary in-charge of Punjab affairs, Harish Rawat, Sidhu and other MLAs were on another tractor as part of a rally. Sidhu, who had been at loggerheads with Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, had stayed away from all Congress activities ever since he resigned as cabinet minister last year. However, last month, he had staged a protest against the farm bills in Amritsar but without Congress' flags. (editor@dailyworld.in)