BIJNOR: After Muzaffarnagar, Mathura and Baghpat, another kisan mahapanchayat was organized in Bijnor on Monday. Attended by over 15,000 farmers from western Uttar Pradesh, the gathering was also addressed by farm leaders from Karnataka and Maharashtra who emphasized that the protests were not confined to North India.
President of Bharatiya Kisan Union’s youth wing, Gaurav Tikait, said, “Over 150 farmers have lost their lives fighting against the new farm laws. Unfortunately, Prime Minister Narendra Modi never uttered a word on the demise of these farmers. He turned a deaf ear to the grievances of the farming community. This government is full of ego and the farmers should unite for this agitation.”
“The government is trying to crush the agitation and defame the farmers in the name of Khalistan. We are neither Pakistani nor Khalistani, we are Indian farmers, fighting against the laws that will destroy us,” Tikait said.
In his address, Rashtriya Lok Dal’s Jayant Chaudhary called the current regime “a government of deceivers, who have surrendered to the capitalist forces”.
He asked the crowd if any farmer’s income had doubled in the past seven years, “as this government claims”.
Chaudhary referred to the farmers as “Hanuman” and asked the gathering to recognize their strength and power to demolish the “BJP’s Lanka”. “The UP chief minister is not paying heed to the grievances of the farmers. Government has not declared the price of sugarcane for the current crushing season nor did he do anything to clear the dues of the farmers,” the RLD leader claimed.
The BKU leaders said that farmers from Bijnor will move to the Ghazipur border in large numbers.
Senior police officials, including DIG Ramit Sharma, are already camping in Bijnor. Following BKU leader Rakesh Tikait’s emotional appeal to the farmers to join protests, Bijnor police had sealed the district borders. Local superintendent of police had even declared the Ghazipur border protests “illegal”, warning farmers against leaving the district.