FARM UNIONS SAY WILL TAKE PROTEST ACROSS THE COUNTRY
NEW DELHI: The Samyukt Kisan Morcha plans to mount a countrywide opposition to the Narendra Modi government’s economic policies, two leaders of the outfit said a day after hundreds of thousands of farmers gathered in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar for a Kisan Mahapanchayat demanding a roll back of the Centre’s three contentious farm laws passed by Parliament a year ago.
NEW DELHI: The Samyukt Kisan Morcha plans to mount a countrywide opposition to the Narendra Modi government’s economic policies, two leaders of the outfit said a day after hundreds of thousands of farmers gathered in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar for a Kisan Mahapanchayat demanding a roll back of the Centre’s three contentious farm laws passed by Parliament a year ago.
The plan envisions a threepoint resolution, arrived at by SKM after a meeting of its key leaders on Monday. It includes setting up SKM units in every state, expanding their opposition to include broader criticism of the government’s economic policies and carrying out protests such as blocking toll plazas across regions.
The SKM, an umbrella body of the protesting farmers’ unions, has been spearheading the agitation since November last year when farmers thronged Delhi’s borders against the three laws.
After Sunday’s Mahapanchayat, the unions have announced their plan to oppose the government’s National Monetisation Pipeline, under which the Centre will monetise state-owned assets over the next four years to generate a revenue of ₹6 lakh crore and boost infrastructure spending to spur economic growth.
They have alleged that the scheme will only benefit a few big corporations. “India is now on sale to (Gautam) Adani and (Mukesh) Ambani. We will not allow that to happen,” said Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait, in a reference to the owners of two of India’s biggest business conglomerates that operate everything from seaports to airports.
While the farmers began their agitation demanding a repeal of the three legislations -the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act – the leaders of the movement have now broadened their agenda to oppose the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its economic policies.
At the Mahapanchayat, the SKM also launched “Mission Uttar Pradesh”, a programme to propel their protests into the state where elections are due next year.
“Sunday’s rally has given us new energy as well as direction,” said Yogendra Yadav, a key leader of the farmers’ platform. The outfit, Yadav said, will set up a unit in every state. “The Samyukta Kisan Morcha will set up units in every state and in all of Uttar Pradesh, from Gazipur on Delhi’s border to Ghazipur in the eastern-most part of Uttar Pradesh,” he said.
Tikait asserted that the farmers will work to defeat Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP in Uttar Pradesh.
“We will hurt them in elections to teach them a lesson,” said Tikait, who hails from the Baliyan khap community -- a dominant farming clan among the Jat agrarian community in western UP.
The community voted overwhelmingly in the favour of the BJP during the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, and the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.
Addressing the Mahapanchayat in Muzaffarnagar on Sunday, Tikait also called for Hindu-Muslim unity. “We will not allow anybody to divide farmers into Hindus and Muslims,” Yadav said at the event. The region witnessed bloody communal riots in 2013 that claimed over 60 lives.
The protesting farmers have sought a repeal of the laws which they say will do away with the MSP system and allow big supermarkets and food businesses to skirt regulated markets. They have also demanded a law to guarantee minimum prices for their produce.
The Modi government, however, has repeatedly said the reforms were necessary to boost farm earnings.