Farmers Movement Archive

Protest has not hit farm work, says union leader

Nagpur: Farmers will stay at the Delhi border till 2024, said Rakesh Tikait, the Bharitya Kisan Union leader from Uttar Pradesh and core committee member of Sanyukt Kisan Morcha, the umbrella organization of the outfits carrying out protests against the new laws. Tikait was in the city as part of the countrywide outreach tours by the Kisan Morcha. Members of the Kisan Morcha are travelling across the country to sensitize farmers in other states about the issue. After Nagpur, Tikait will be travelling to Karnataka. Tikait later clarified that by saying 2024, he did not mean to make any political statement. He only wanted to say that the farmers are prepared for a long struggle. “If I had mentioned 2022 then it would have looked like a reference to the UP elections,” he said. The presence of farmers in the protests in large numbers has not hampered the operations back in their villages, he said. “This is because farmers are coming to the Delhi border in turns and also working in each other’s fields. If the fields have to be watered and the farmer is in Delhi, then the neighbours take care of the job,” he said. Tikait said the Kisan Morcha will stick to its demands that the three new laws must be withdrawn and an act making MSP procurement mandatory must be passed by the government. He said farmers respect the court. However, the outfit believes that since the laws have been passed by the government it should only be repealed in Parliament. This was in reference to the Supreme Court staying three laws and formation of a committee. “Our negotiations will only continue with the government,” he said. On why farmers in other states are not participating in the agitation, he said it’s not that only Sikh farmers from Punjab are staging protests. “There are farmers from Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand too,” he said. “Farmers from other states wanting to come have to face strict vigilance by the police. There have been instances of cops emotionally blackmailing farmers through relatives. Policemen have literally pleaded before farmers to not go to Delhi or else they may lose their jobs,” said Tikait.

The Times of India

2021-01-18

Nagpur