Farmer leader Rakesh Tikait, the national spokesperson for the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), has asked farmers to travel to Muzaffarnagar for a Mahapanchayat this week, on 'expired' tractors. The latter said in his message that many in the farming community are outraged at the prohibition on diesel vehicles, especially tractors that are over 10 years old.
Tikait further claimed that the Center had misled the public over the minimum support price for crops, and he predicted that the uproar would persist. In order to get their problems resolved, hundreds of BKU-affiliated farmers went on an indefinite strike last week in the Muzaffarnagar area under the leadership of Tikait.
According to sources in BKU, a number of farmer leaders affiliated with Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) from Shamli, Baghpat, Meerut, Saharanpur, and neighboring regions will also attend the mahapanchayat.
Regarding the agenda for the mahapanchayat, BKU stated that we would be talking about the government's broken promises regarding outstanding sugarcane issues, the new sugarcane state-advised price (SAP), the electricity meter installed on the tubewell, and most importantly, the MSP (Minimum Support Price).
The farmers received nothing, even according to the budget, Tikait stated. Regarding sugarcane pricing and outstanding cane payments, the government remained silent. Simply put, they are deceiving the farmers, he noted.
BKU leader earlier said that the Uttar Pradesh government is giving away farmlands to industrialists while the big businesses want the farmers to work in their own fields as mere labourers in his speech at the Bharatiya Kisan Union camp in Magh Mela district of Prayagraj.
He told media representatives that the current state government is not functioning in the best interests of the farmers.
Tikait continued by claiming that farmers are being pressured into selling their land to powerful corporations and businessmen and that the government is not paying them a fair price for their products.
As a result of not receiving the right price for their products and their administration's lack of concern, farmers' conditions are actually getting worse, he said.
