Rakesh Tikait Asks Farmers To Be Ready For Nationwide Agitation
Mumbai: Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait has asked farmers to be ready for a nationwide agitation over their demands, including a law on MSP and the removal of Union Minister Ajay Misra Teni.
Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) leaders will share the time, place and nature of the nationwide agitation at an appropriate time, Tikait told the protesting farmers and called for strengthening the Morcha, an umbrella body of farmer unions.
“If the SKM weakens, the governments will do good to the farmers,” said Tikait as representatives of the BKU-Chaduni faction, which is not a part of the SKM, reached the protest site to express solidarity with the agitating farmers.
Farmers from different states reached Rajapur Mandi Committee of Lakhimpur Kheri district of Uttar Pradesh on Friday.
Lakhimpur Kheri is represented in the Lok Sabha by the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Mishra. His son Ashish Mishra is accused of the Lakhimpur Kheri violence on October 3 last year, in which four farmers and a journalist were among the eight killed.
Prominent leaders including SKM core committee member Darshan Singh Pal, Swaraj India national convener Yogendra Yadav and social activist Medha Patekar have spearheaded the movement since its inception on Thursday.
Prominent farmer leaders from Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh also addressed the farmers.
Taking a jibe at Minister Mishra, Tikait said, “The entire country is well aware of the Tikunia violence and everyone also knows who was the main instigator behind it.”
“It is ironic that the minister was still in his post,” he said, adding that the minister should be treated as an accused in a case of violence under IPC section 120B, which relates to criminal conspiracy to commit an offence.
He also alleged that “a conspiracy is being hatched in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand against the Sikh community to snatch their land and the Samyukta Kisan Morcha will never allow this to happen.”
Tikait told the gathering that a 10-member delegation of the SKM, including him, was going to meet the four farmers lodged in jail and their families.
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