Farmers Movement Archive

‘BKU to intensify farmers’ stir in poll-bound UP, Uttarakhand’: Tikait

Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait on Monday gave ample indication of spreading the eight-month-old farmers’ agitation to Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the two Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states that are scheduled to go to assembly polls early next year.The farmers’ agitation against the Centre’s three agricultural laws has been confined largely to the Delhi borders so far.Addressing a press conference in Lucknow with Yogendra Yadav and some other Sanyukt Kisan Morcha leaders, he said that they would now intensify the agitation by launching the ‘Mission UP-Uttarakhand’ and telling people about the governments’ “anti-people policies”.He announced that a farmers’ panchayat would be organised in Muzaffarnagar in western UP on September 5 as a precursor to the intensification of the agitation after eight months of dharna on the Delhi border failed to move the Central government.“We will also convert Lucknow into Delhi by blocking its entry points if our demands are not met,” Tikait warned, reiterating that farmers’ stir would continue till the Centre withdraws the three new farm reform laws.He also said that UP was a state of agitation but it, he alleged, was now being converted into a “police state” much like Gujarat. He also said electricity was free for farmers in seven-eight states but the power tariff was quite high in UP.Replying to a question, Tikait said he had no plans to contest assembly elections and added that farmers were free to support the party they liked.“But farmers will not vote for the BJP because their fight is against this party,” he hastened to add.Yogendra Yadav said that the stir that completed eight months (on Monday) had been able to bring self-respect back to farmers.“Despite the long agitation, the Centre has not paid any heed to our demands. We are here to announce the intensification and extension of our agitation with Mission UP-Uttarakhand,” he said. The stir, he said, would gradually spread across the country.“We will also raise local issues apart from highlighting issues of national importance during the agitation,” Yadav said.Farmers have been protesting on the different borders of the national capital since November 26 last year against the three newly enacted farm laws: Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; the Farmers Empowerment and Protection Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.Farmer leaders and the Centre have held several rounds of talks but the impasse remains.

Hindustan Times

26-07-2021

Lucknow