Rakesh Tikait says farmers’ stir may continue till December

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Allahabad: The Bhartiya Kisan Union-led farmer agitation against the three central farm laws may continue till December this year, the outfit’s national spokesperson Rakesh Tikait said on March 14.

“This agitation possibly will stretch up to November or December this year,” he said.

Talking about his West Bengal visit, Tikait said during poll campaigning there, the central government people have been asking farmers to give them one feastful of rice.

“I have advised Bengal farmers to ask grain seekers to fix an MSP of Rs 1,850 per quintal for paddy before giving them a single grain of rice,” Tikait told reporters here.

He said after Bengal, he was planning to visit other parts of the country to press for the enactment of a law guaranteeing an MSP for various crops.

“In Bihar, the paddy is currently being bought by traders at an abysmally low rate of Rs 750 to Rs 800 per quintal. I want a law guaranteeing the minimum support price for various crops,” said Tikait.

He said he was not going to sit in Delhi alone but was planning to visit all over the country, including Madhya Pradesh on March 14 and 15, Ganga Nagar in Rajasthan on March 17, Ghazipur’s UP Gate border in Delhi on March 18, Odisha on March 19 and Karnataka on March 21 and 22.

During his visit here, Tikait also garlanded a statue of his late father and farmer leader Mahendra Singh Tikait at Tikait Park in Jhalwa.

The BKU spokesperson claimed the three central laws will lead to the closure of all small-time neighbourhood shops, leaving only big commercial malls to survive.

“These farm laws will ruin traders and lead to the closure of small business utilities and the collapse of small industries. These laws will bring in big multinational firms like Walmart. Had this government belonged to a political party, it would have talked to farmers and resolved the matter. But this government is being run by big business houses. It is bent upon selling the entire country,” he alleged.