‘If we have demands, why are we seen as anti-nationals?’
Item
Title
‘If we have demands, why are we seen as anti-nationals?’
Description
NOIDA: Perturbed over links drawn with the ‘tukde tukde gang’ and ‘anti-national elements’ to the farmers’ agitation, outfits heading the protest at the Noida-Delhi border on Tuesday called it a ploy to weaken their movement, saying protesters who had come from their farms had no links to any such outfits or individuals. One of the groups, Bharatiya Kisan Union-Lokshakti, said in a statement, “BKU-Lokshakti does not support anti-national forces at any cost and neither lets such forces share space during our protest. We are totally apolitical and don’t support any parties whether in power or in opposition. We only have to raise the voice of the poor farmer-labourers and we are appealing to other outfits too that wherever protests are on, their leadership doesn’t allow anti-national forces to share space because this weakens the agitation and this should be taken special care of.” Talking to TOI, BKU-Lokshakti president Shyoraj Singh said there had been incidents where miscreants had been caught by farmers and beaten up. “A video is doing the rounds where a person called Umesh Singh has been caught raising some controversial slogans at a protest site. He was caught and beaten up by farmers, who handed him over to police. Such miscreants are trying to weaken our protest. What should we make of it? It seems that they are planted by those in power. We have alerted our supporters so that politicians don’t enter our protest. We voted for BJP and now want our demands to be fulfilled by the elected government. Why should we be seen as anti-nationals?” Singh said. The BKU-Bhanu group made a similar point. “In my understanding, the government is trying to break the struggle of farmers by misleading people,” BKU-Bhanu state president Yogesh Pratap Singh said. “The government is trying to defame our struggle, especially over the past two-three days. The media should introspect and correctly reveal the facts,” he said.
Publisher
The Times of India
Date
2020-12-16
Coverage
Noida