Jaipur
Farmer leader Rakesh Tikait is these days holding meetings with farmers to whip up support on the ground against the three contentious central farm laws.
Tikait, of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, has 5 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, the constituency of Rashtriya Loktantrik Party convener 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 haul. “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 4 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 3 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 the farmer agitation is over. But there are 15,000 tractors standing at the Tikri border. Farmers have put up shacks below trees.
Toolkit case: Goa’s green activist gets transit bail
Panaji: The Bombay High Court in Goa on Wednesday granted transit bail to environmental activist Subham Kar Chaudhuri, who in his bail petition has claimed he is being falsely implicated in the Greta Thunberg toolkit case, in which Bengaluru-based climate change activist Disha Ravi was recently arrested.
In her order granting transit bail to Chaudhuri, Justice MS Jawalkar said "reasons for apprehension of arrest is justified in the facts" presented by the applicant, while granting 10 days to enable the latter to approach competent Courts for relief.
Currently, Goa-based Chaudhuri has expressed fear of arrest by the Delhi Police Special Cell in the Toolkit case probe, in which two other persons Shantanu Muluk and Nikita Jacob are on the police radar.
