Farmers Movement Archive

Rakesh Tikait opposing Budget for the sake of it, says UP minister

GHAZIABAD: UP minister Siddharth Nath Singh on Friday hit back at Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait for criticising the Union Budget while accusing opposition parties of “misguiding farmers”. Singh, a cabinet minister in the Yogi Adityanath government, said of Tikait, “He has not read the Budget and is opposing it for the sake of opposing it.” Tikait had described as “bookish” finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s assertion in her Budget speech that the MSP (minimum support price) regime has resulted in farmers getting 1.5 times more than the production cost. “It is all bookish and on paper. All that the Budget will achieve is to make small farmers bonded labourers. They will be offered loans, and to repay it, they will end up selling their land,” Tikait had said after the Budget was presented on February 1. Singh was in Ghaziabad as part of a government outreach to create awareness about the Budget. “Our government’s outreach programme on the Budget is aimed at countering misinformation campaigns, which the opposition has launched against us. Through this, we intend to remove any doubts on the farm bills. The opposition is misguiding farmers and is out to reap political dividends at the cost of farmers’ welfare,” Singh said, adding, “As far as the protests are concerned, the government respects farmers’ right to peaceful protest.” Tikait is leading the sit-in protest at UP Gate on the Ghaziabad-Delhi border, which is part of the larger farmers’ agitation demanding a repeal of the three new central farming laws. Reacting to Singh’s remarks, Jagtar Singh Bajwa, a member of the UP Gate farmers’ committee, said, “This is expected of BJP and this does not surprise us because, all along, this is what they have been doing to discredit our agitation. If the Budget is so good for farmers and the common man, why did the need arise for an outreach programme?” Farmers at UP Gate said they were preparing to participate in the nationwide ‘rail roko’ that the unions have called on February 18.

The Times of India

2021-02-13

Noida