Rakesh Tikait of the Bharatiya Kisan Union proclaimed yesterday that "If governments can run for 5 years, the protest can also go on for 5 years," while celebrating Diwali at the Ghazipur Protest site on Thursday.
Farm members and leaders of the Protest were all present at the Diwali celebration where they were also responsible for conducting a remembrance session for soldiers who had been killed in the Line of Duty with Mr Tikait called "Do Diye, Shaheedon Ke Liye".
Tikait was also quick to put to rest speculations rifts between him and Yogendra Yadav, another farmers' leader who was previously affiliated with the Samyukta Kisan Morcha, the umbrella body of farmers' unions organising the protest against three contentious farm laws, by stating that he( Yogendra Yadav) had taken time away to write a book and that there was no internal rift between them.
He stated that people's thoughts and beliefs, rather than their actual presence, made them large, hence dwindling numbers at the protest location were not a concern. He stated that they had farmers on standby for two hours.
Rakesh Tikait was also quick to delink any connections that the farmer’s protest might have with the recent accidents in the Tikri district where three women were killed by a truck and the murder of a Dalit labourer by a Nihang Sikh in the Singhu border protest site.
He also spoke vehemently on the rise of prices of goods and poverty and how the government should think about why many households in India aren’t able to afford a Diya this Diwali. Farmers are staging protests at the Delhi border for the last 11 months, demanding withdrawal of the three contentious farm bills and to give a guarantee of procuring their crops at Minimum Support Price (MSP), he said.
Rakesh Tikait's elder brother Naresh Tikait stated on Monday that farmers would celebrate Diwali on the roadways and were even planning to celebrate Holi there if the farm bills were not amended in time.
