Rakesh Tikait claims farmers' protest will continue till Dec; bats for TMC in Bengal polls

The BKU-led thread of the farmer's agitation against the three central farm laws may continue till December this year, the outfit's national spokesperson Rakesh Tikait claimed on Sunday. Tikait made the statement while talking to reporters after his recent visit to poll-bound West Bengal.

"This agitation possibly will stretch up to November or December this year", he said, a day after addressing a rally in poll-bound Nandigram in West Bengal where he campaigned for Mamata Banerjee and against the BJP.

"The day Samyukt Morcha decides, a new mandi will be opened at Parliament where crops will be sold at MSP. Next target is Parliament. Tractors will again enter Delhi. We have 3.5 lakh tractors & 25 lakhs farmers, the next target will be to sell crops at Parliament. PM Modi said we can sell crops anywhere outside 'mandis', we think Parliament is the best mandi. Customers are inside and farmers outside, sale is assured," said Tikait at Nandigram.

Tikait had also held a Mahapanchayat in Kolkata on Saturday, thundering the Trinamool's slogan 'Khela Hobe!'. Tikait, who was received by TMC MP Dola Sen in Kolkata, slammed the Modi government over the loss of 300 protestors in the past 108 days. He asked Bengal farmers to not come to Delhi and but protest in their poll-bound state, to defeat the BJP. 

Farmers' agitation 

Thousands of farmers in India, mostly from Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh, have been camping at several Delhi border points since November 28 last year, demanding a repeal of the farm laws and a legal guarantee on Minimum Support Price (MSP) for their crops. So far, 11 rounds of talks have taken place between the government and farmer leaders with both sides hardening their positions. In the last round of talks, the government offered to suspend the laws for 1-1.5 years and form a joint committee to find solutions, in return for protesting farmers going back to their respective homes from Delhi borders.

Republic Day's tractor parade on January 26 in New Delhi, which was to highlight the demands of the farmer unions to repeal three new Agri laws, had dissolved into anarchy on the streets of the city as tens of thousands of protesters broke through barriers, fought with police, overturned vehicles and hoisted a religious flag from the ramparts of the iconic Red Fort.