Centre will definitely repeal farm laws by 2024: Tikait

NEW DELHI: Rakesh Tikait, leader of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, a key farm organisation behind the ongoing farmers’ agitation, marked his birthday on Friday with a vow to not rest until the three agricultural laws at the heart of protests were scrapped, and predicted the legislation would be gone by 2024.

“The government will definitely agree [to scrap the laws]. The laws will be withdrawn by 2024. It’s certain. In three years, the laws will go,” he said.

The ruling National Democratic Alliance’s current term ends in 2024, when it will face the next Lok Sabha election.

Asked what made him so confident since the government has said it was willing to suspend the laws for 18 months, not repeal them, Tikait said: “Why will they not withdraw it? What do you mean by ‘no, it looks impossible’?”

The farm leader, who turned 53, however, did not clearly state the reasons behind his assertion. Asked if he had discussions with the government on rescinding the laws, he said: “No, we have talked to the public. The public will decide and the laws will go. The government will have to withdraw them.”

Tikait said he spoke to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath recently over the phone. “Yes, I talked to him over phone.

No meeting. In UP, there are arrears of ₹23,000 crore payable to sugarcane farmers. We raised these issues of pending sugarcane dues, and rising diesel and electricity prices that are hurting farmers,” Tikait said. “We will meet the chief minister when corona subsides,” he said.

Thousands of farmers, especially from Punjab, Uttar Pradesh

and Haryana, are demanding the rollback of three laws passed in September last year, mounting a political challenge for the Modi government.

Tikait has entrenched the protests firmly in his home turf, the politically crucial sugarcane belt of western Uttar Pradesh. The Tikaits belong to the Baliyan khap, a dominant clan among the Jat agrarian community in western UP, most of who are sugarcane growers. They voted overwhelmingly for the ruling BJP in the past elections.

So far, 11 rounds of talks between 40 farm leaders and the government have failed to resolve the agitation. Both the government and farmers had called off the series of discussions on January 22, citing lack of progress.

The government has said the agricultural laws would spur investments and give farmers the freedom to sell their produce directly to large buyers in a sector that accounts for nearly 15% of India’s $2.9 trillion economy and employs half its workforce.

Farmers say the laws will threaten their livelihoods by forcing them to sell to corporate giants at poor prices instead of government-run markets, which offer assured prices.

“The farmers’ agitation will not only impact but may well be a deciding factor in the UP’s state elections in 2022,” said Sudhir Panwar, who teaches at Lucknow University.

Rakesh Tikait