Farmers prepared for a long haul, will relent only when demands met: Rakesh Tikait

Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait on Thursday said the agitating farmers were prepared for a long haul and will relent only when their demands are met.

Tikait reiterated that the Centre must withdraw the farm laws and provide a legal guarantee on MSP.He said the farm laws were not only adversely affecting the farmers but will impact other sections as well.

“This fight is not just of farmers but it is also for the poor, small traders..,” said Tikait while addressing a farmers’ ‘mahapanchayat’ at Assandh in this district.

Asserting that farmers were prepared for a long haul, he said, “This agitation will go on for long. We have made preparations till November-December.” Referring to his late father Mahender Singh Tikait, he said, “Tikait sahib used to say that when Haryana stands in support of an agitation, government shivers.”

“They tried to break our agitation by dividing it on lines of Punjab and Haryana and projecting it as specific to a particular state but that did not work,” he said, hitting out at the government.

Tikait said the government may try to impose restrictions in the garb of coronavirus pandemic at places where farmers are sitting in large numbers as part of the ongoing stir but that will not deter them.

“There is the possibility that in the name of corona, restrictions may be imposed but our agitation will go on. We will follow all the guidelines, but we will not end our dharnas,” he asserted.

He also said farmers have shown how to manage their time for the stir as well as for their crops.

Tikait said the agitation was drawing good support from several states across the country including Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.

Hundreds of farmers are camping at Delhi’s borders since November last year demanding the repeal of the three contentious farm laws.

Enacted in September 2020, the three farm laws have been projected by the Centre as major reforms in the agriculture sector that will remove the middlemen and allow farmers to sell their produce anywhere in the country.

The protesting farmers, on the other hand, have been insisting that the new laws would pave the way for eliminating the safety cushion of the minimum support price and do away with the ”mandi” (wholesale market) system, leaving them at the mercy of big corporates.