Many BJP leaders keen to quit over humiliation of farmers: Naresh Tikait

MEERUT : After organising a mahapanchayat of farmers in Muzaffarnagar, Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) chief Naresh Tikait tweeted on late Friday night that he had received telephone calls from many Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders who were willing to resign because they “can’t tolerate seeing such humiliation of farmers”.

“If we keep silent now, the coming generations will not forgive us,” the BKU leader quoted them as saying.

Naresh Tikait has turned aggressive on Twitter after seeing his brother Rakesh Tikait (BKU national spokesperson) in tears for the farmers’ cause.

While addressing the mahapanchayat on Friday, Naresh Tikait admitted that supporting the BJP to defeat Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Ajit Singh in the election for the Muzaffarnagar Lok Sabha seat in 2019 was a mistake and he regretted it.

The Tikait brothers’ father Mahendra Singh Tikait was the BKU chief before Naresh and the family still commands respect in the Jat belt as does the family of Ajit Singh, whose father Chaudhary Charan Singh was a former prime minister. After the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013, Ajit Singh and his son Jayant Chaudhary lost the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 2019 on their home turf.

Chaudhary Yashbeer Singh, regional president of RLD, claimed that Tikait’s tweet and his comment at the mahapanchayat in support of Ajit Singh had created unease among BJP workers. He explained, “(Rakesh) Tikait’s tears have changed the situation overnight. BJP leaders and workers are also part of the society and they can’t ignore the widespread anger against the party.”

BJP’s west UP president Mohit Beniwal, who belongs to the Beniwal khap of the Jat community, expressed ignorance about any such tweet by Naresh Tikait and said, “Let me have a look at it.”

BJP’s Muzaffarnagar district president Vijay Shukla described it as a “baseless claim” and said farmers were strongly behind the BJP.

He said the party’s Kisan Morcha leaders were in regular touch with farmers and they didn’t come across with any such inputs.