Farmer leader Rakesh Tikait is these days holding meetings with farmers to whip up support on the ground against the farm laws brought by the central government.
Tikait, of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, has five rallies planned in Rajasthan in this month. Through the farmers’ meetings he is also trying to build up his own political base.
He has held meetings in Karauli, Sawai Madhopur and Jhunjhunu districts in February. On Wednesday, he addressed a rally in Nagaur, which is the constituency of Rashtriya Loktantrik Party convenor Hanuman Beniwal.
On March 12, he will hold a kisan mahapanchayat in Pipad city in Jodhpur district, on March 17 a meeting will be held in Sriganganagar and a big rally is planned in Jaipur on March 23.
The meetings are being held in areas which are strongholds of farmers as well as Jats, the community to which Tikait belongs.
At a meeting in Nagaur on Wednesday, Tikait asked farmers to learn to break barricades so they can take their agitation to Delhi.
Addressing the large gathering, he asked farmers to be ready for a long agitation. “Farmers will have to continue the agitation. We have to make committees in each village. Only then will this agitation be successful
“If the administration imposes section 144, farmer organisations put section 188 alongside. Till you don’t learn to break barricading and push your way forward, you can’t take the agitation to Delhi. If you come to know there is barricading anywhere in the city, farmers should have four times the strength and learn to break the barricading,” he said.
Tikait said tractors are the tanks of the farmers. Giving a formula for a successful organisation, he said, “One village, 15 men and 10 days is the formula of building an organisation. After 10 days, change 15 the people.”
He said the three farm laws that have been made in Delhi are being brought in to destroy the farmers.
“If farmers lose, labourers also lose. Bhimrao Ambedkar and the constitution will lose. Rotis will be put into lockers by businessmen and big corporates. Prices will be determined on the basis of hunger,” he said.
Tikait hit out at the government saying they are claiming that the farmer agitation is over. But there are 15,000 tractors standing at the Tikri border. Farmers have put up shacks below trees. Farmers have not gone anywhere. We have been successful in our agitation on the Jaipur-Delhi national highway and on the Agra-Delhi highway.
