DW BUREAU / chandigarh Haryana Congress leaders on Thursday slammed the Manohar Lal Khattar government for using water cannons and tear gas on farmers moving towards Delhi against the Centre's farm laws, saying the BJP-led dispensation should exercise restraint and hold talks with the protesters. Senior Congress leader and former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said the farmers have the right to protest peacefully and by using water cannons and tear gas to stop their march, the state government is trying to muzzle their voice. Speaking to reporters in Rohtak, Hooda said the government should not try to suppress the voice of the farmers. "Water cannons were used against the farmers... The government should exercise restraint and hold talks with the agitating farmers and try to find a solution," Hooda, who is the Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly, said. When the three farm laws were being framed, I had said that the Centre should bring a fourth law making it a punishable offence if anyone makes a crop purchase below the Minimum Support Price (MSP), he said. Haryana Congress president Kumari Selja alleged that the Centre has tried to break the backbone of the farmers by enacting the three "anti-agriculture black laws". "Now, when the farmers are peacefully protesting against these laws, they are not being allowed to do that either. The government has always tricked the farmers and today the government is not even giving them a chance to speak," she said. "On the contrary, they are putting them in jails, using water cannons and tear gas on them," she added. In a statement, Selja, a former Union Minister, also said the government should rollback the "black farm laws" and frame a law guaranteeing MSP for farmers. Congress chief spokesperson and former Haryana Minister Randeep Singh Surjewala said the farmers had "full support" of the party. (editor@dailyworld.in)