The farmers’ agitation suffered another setback on Thursday when at least four kisan unions pulled out of the stir in protest against the 26 January violence in the national capital.
After the Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sangathan and the Bhartiya Kisan Union (Bhanu) pulling out of the farmers’ protest on Wednesday, two farmers’ bodies—the Kisan Mahapanchayat and BKU (Lok Shakti)—too withdrew support from the farmers’ protest a day later.
“The protest has been called off,” BKU (Lok Shakti) spokesperson Shailesh Kumar Giri said. The Lok Shakti faction had been camping at the Dalit Prerna Sthal in Noida since 2 December. Leaders of the BKU (Ekta) and BKU (Lok Shakti) also met Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Tomar on Thursday and confirmed to him that they are pulling out of the protest.
Meanwhile, the Kisan Mahapanchayat also said it would vacate the Shahjahanpur protest site in the wake of the violence in Delhi on Republic Day. “We had disassociated ourselves from Samyukt Kisan Morcha on January 21 but were supporting the protest. Now, we’ll support the movement after analysing every step. We have decided to vacate the protest site at Shahjahanpur (Rajasthan-Haryana border),” ANI quoted Kisan Mahapanchayat leader Rampal Jat as saying.
The Kisan Mahapanchayat has been protesting at the Rajasthan-Haryana border since 11 December after they were prevented from going to Delhi by Haryana Police.
On Wednesday, Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sangathan leader V.M. Singh said his organisation is withdrawing from the ongoing agitation as they cannot carry forward a protest with someone “whose direction is something else”.
“We are discontinuing our agitation but our fight for farmers’ rights will continue,” VM Singh was quoted as saying by news agency ANI at Ghazipur border.
Also, Thakur Bhanu Pratap Singh, president of Bharatiya Kisan Union (Bhanu) said that he too is withdrawing from the protest and is pained to see the violence in Delhi. “I am deeply pained by whatever happened in Delhi yesterday and am ending our 58-day protest,” he told media.
With the BKU (Bhanu) withdrawing its protest, the Delhi-Noida Link Road via Chilla border reopened for traffic after 57 days. The group had been occupying one of the carriageways on the key route, leading to its partial closure, since it began the protest on 1 December 2020.
The crowd at the protest sites in Delhi’s Singhu and Tikri borders was also quite less on Thursday, even though the farmer unions said it was because the protesters, who had come to the national capital to take part in January 26 march, have returned home. The number of tractors has reduced, and so have the protestors.
To their setback, the locals on Thursday protested against the agitating farmers in the Singhu border, citing inconvenience as well as the Delhi violence.
In the Ghazipur border too, the number of farmers has come down quite substantially. And to add to the worry of the protesting farmers led by Rakesh Tikait, the police and the local administration have told them to vacate the site.
Finding himself on the back foot, Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait on Thursday broke down at the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh Ghazipur farmers protest site, alleging that the administration was trying to crush their movement.
Tikait, who has been named in the Delhi Police FIR in connection with the violence at several parts of the city during the ‘Kisan Gantantra parade’ on Republic Day, made his appearance at the protest site two days later, saying: “We were ready to surrender peacefully but the BJP’s local MLAs have been called to beat the protesting farmers.”
“There is a conspiracy against us. Now, I will not surrender even if the police fires bullets at us,” he announced from the dais of the farmers’ protest site.
Tikait also said that he will hang himself but he will not surrender now and urged the farmers to save their tents that have been in place since 26 November last year.
Speaking to media, an emotional Tikait said that the administration was trying to conspire against the farmers to end their peaceful movement. “We had come here to protest against the three farm laws demanding their repealing,” he said.
He alleged that the people of the BJP are trying to kill the farmers. “This is injustice to farmers of the country. The three laws must be repealed and our movement will keep on going till the time the three laws are not rerpealed,” he said. “I will keep on fighting for the farmers’ right,” he added.
The Ghaziabad administration has served notice to farmers to vacate the protest site. Earlier in the day, there was heavy deployment of police personnel and security forces at the Ghazipur protest site, where the farmers have been camping since 26 November last year.