Muzaffarnagar:
Bharatiya Kisan Union national president Naresh Tikait has termed farm laws a ”fire” (aag) which would lead to losses and has urged the Centre to repeal them.
Tikait was speaking to reporters in Muzaffarnagar on the sidelines of a Kisan Panchayat on Saturday and a video of it was shared on social media. In the video, he said, ”Repeal this bill, this is a fire. This is a fire which will lead to many losses. (iss bill ko dabaa do, yeh aag hai, yeh bahut nuksaan ki aag hai). If the laws are repealed then the government does not stand to lose anything. The bills have put on hold for one-and-half years. Accept your fault, and hold talks.” Tikait also said, ”In this government, Rajnath (Singh) jee is being humiliated (Rajnath jee ki tauheen ho rahi hai iss sarkaar mein). There is nothing in the control of our MPs, they are feeling afraid, and their sympathy is with the farmers.” ”We are not very educated, but we know in which direction the society is going,” he said.
To a question that political parties were evincing interest in the protest and what if the agitation became political in the future, Tikait said that those who are engaged in politics have to come to the farmers.
Hitting out at the BJP, he said, ”Is the BJP not doing politics? It is targeting multiple objects with a single arrow.” Sharpening his attack], he said, ”Should there be no politics? Should farmers stay quiet? This will not do. The police were made to confront the farmers.” He said the families of farmers were with them, and they should not be considered weak. ”This misconception should be removed. If bullets are fired at us, then we will take them on our chest and not on our backs. There are crores of people with us,” Tikait said.
Throwing a challenge, Tikait said, ”If a display of strength has to be done, then the BJP can do so in a state where it is in power like Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. The government will get to know its strength. We will make it fail at every place. We will bear the cost of the stage. We speak for the honour of the farmers.” Tikait said in the four years of the BJP government in UP, it has enhanced the price of sugarcane by Rs 10. ”We feel that the elephant has a separate set of teeth for eating and separate set for showing. Be it the Centre or the state government, we are not going to gain anything. We have not got anything from the government except cases,” he said.
Issuing a warning, he said, ”The atmosphere is so hot that anything can happen. There are sparks in entire India. There is an election in Bengal, and that election will be kept in mind. Every year, one or two states go to polls. What will they do?” Meanwhile, Rashtriya Kisan Majdoor Sangathan president VM Singh took a jibe at Tikait, the president of the Bharatiya Kisan Union. ”The government has encouraged Tikait (sarkaar ne Tikait ko havaa di hai), a person who had only 300-400 people. Rest of the people were ours. When the issue of calling off the agitation came up, the government felt that if it is called off, then VM Singh will get all the credit, and that the entire agitation stood because of the people of Singh,” Singh said.
