The demands made by farmers against the agriculture reform laws are not being heeded by the Narendra Modi government as it is being run by big corporates, Bharatiya Kisan Union national spokesperson Rakesh Tikait said on Monday. He was addressing farmers at a panchayat in Modinagar, ahead of the scheduled mahapanchayat in Muzaffarnagar on September 5.
He alleged that the government did not want to bring in a law on the minimum support price because it wanted to safeguard the interests of its corporate friends. “They want to do business of hunger. If you want to save your land, you have to give the BJP the same treatment that farmers of Bengal administered it in the recent Assembly election,” he added.
He said farmers should be wary of the divisive politics of the BJP. “In Uttar Pradesh, they pit Hindus against Muslims, in Gujarat they put Patels against non-Patels, in Haryana, they make it Jats versus non-Jats and in Maharashtra, Marathas are propped up against non-Marathas. It is time to see through their tactics of dividing us to rule,” he said.
Invoking names of BJP leaders like L.K. Advani and Murali Manohar Joshi, Mr. Tikait said it seemed those who talked of Swadeshi had been asked to keep their mouths shut.
“This is the party that talks of cows and cow dung. They promised to implement the M.S. Swaminathan report in their manifesto. It seems even the manifesto has been reduced to jumlebaazi,” he said.
Gujarat model
Mr. Tikait claimed the government was trying to bring in the Gujarat and Brazil model of land acquisition and said in future farmers would be reduced to labour working for big corporates on the farms.
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