Farmers Movement Archive

Day after mahapanchayat, Akhilesh backs farm stir

AGRA: A day after the Muzaffarnagar mahapanchayat, which hosted a large turnout of protesting farmers from across the country, former UP chief minister and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Monday said his party “fully supports” the farmers and that the government should resume negotiations with them. “The insult to farmers will not be tolerated by the nation. I will back them till the government withdraws the three farm laws,” Yadav said in Agra, where he was attending a private event. “Farmers are annadatas (providers of food). The Centre should listen to their demands, respect them and resume the dialogue with them to resolve the crisis.” At the mahapanchayat, farmer leaders had said they would use their protest platforms to mobilise support against BJP, which is in power, for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand assembly elections. “People will vote for change and the transformation will be historical,” Yadav said. His party will form alliances with smaller ones for 2022, he added. “The gathering of farmers in western UP and that of teachers in eastern UP (a public meeting of his party’s teachers’ wing which he addressed at Bhadohi) has shown that BJP... will not come back. It is the voice of the people,” he had tweeted earlier. About his uncle Shivpal Yadav, who broke away and formed the Pragatisheel Samajwadi (Lohia) party, he said the party “respects him and his associates and the Jaswantnagar seat (which Shivpal has been winning in an unbroken streak since 1996) will be left uncontested.”

The Times of India

2021-09-07

India