Will occupy govt offices if evicted from protest sites: Rakesh Tikait
If farmers are forcibly removed from the borders then they will turn govt offices into grain markets, he said
Farm union leader Rakesh Tikait, at the forefront of the year-long agitation against three agricultural laws, on Sunday threatened to escalate protests and turn all government offices into “galla mandis” or grain markets if authorities dismantled protest sites.
Tikait first tweeted his new protest plan and then talked to farmers in Ghazipur, asking them to be prepared. “If farmers are forcibly removed from the borders then they will turn government offices in the country into grain markets,” Tikait’s tweet in the morning said.
Since November last year, thousands of farmers have pitched tents at five sites near Delhi’s borders — Singhu, Ghaziabad, Tikri, Dhansa and Shahjahanpur (on the Rajasthan-Haryana border) — from where they have been carrying on their protests.
“Protest is a constitutional right. Farmers have been peacefully camping at the borders. If that right is taken away, then we will turn all main offices in districts across the country into grain markets. Our farmers are prepared to do it,” Tikait told HT.
On October 29, the Delhi Police started removing barricades and concrete barriers put up by farmers at the Gazipur and Tikri protest sites. The stretch cleared by the police was closed for nearly a year ever since the farmers’ agitation started. The police said the closure of a section of roads near these sites inconvenienced commuters and traffic.
On October 21, the Supreme Court said farmers had a right to protest but roads should not be blocked indefinitely. The court made the observation on a plea against the blockade of roads between Delhi and Noida due to farmers’ protests against the three agriculture laws.
Farmers are continuing with their protests, demanding scrapping of new laws brought by the Narendra Modi-led government to liberalise agricultural trade. The government has argued that these changes were necessary to boost the farm sector, which employs half of all Indians.
Major farm unions, led by the umbrella platform Samyukt Kisan Morcha, have said the laws will leave cultivators at the mercy of big corporations by dictating prices.
Asked about the Supreme Courts observation on blocking of roads, Tikait said farmers had not blocked roads. “The police had placed these barricades. Farmers are cooperating with the public to ensure smooth traffic,” he said.
Farmers protesting at different sites since November 26 last year want the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; the Farmers Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and farm Services Act 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020 rolled back.
Despite 11 rounds of talks — the last one was held on January 22 — there has been no point of agreement between the government and the farmers. The government then offered to freeze the laws for 18 months, a proposal which the farmers rejected.
The new laws at the heart of the protests essentially aim to ease restrictions on trade in farm produce by setting up free markets, which will co-exist with regulated markets, allow food traders to stockpile large stocks of food for future sales and lay down a national framework for contract farming based on written agreements. Farm unions say free markets under the laws will erode their bargaining power, weaken a system of assured prices and make them vulnerable to exploitation by corporate giants.
The government has said the laws would not impact the current system of assured prices for cereals farmers are offered in government-run markets, which will continue to exist.