By PTI
JAIPUR: Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait on Tuesday said that farmers, if required, will sell their produce at the Parliament complex as part of their protest against the Centre’s new agri laws.
Farmers will not be divided, Tikait said while addressing a ‘Kisan Mahapanchayat’ in Jaipur’s Vidhyadhar Nagar stadium.
“If required, farmers will go to Parliament to sell their crops,” he said and called upon them to be ready to move towards Delhi whenever required.
Hundreds of farmers are camping at Delhi’s borders since November last year demanding that the Centre repeal the three contentious farm laws.
The farmer leader said that a nationwide movement against the farm laws has started and youths have a big responsibility now.
Tikait said that the country will be saved when slogans of ‘Jai Ram’ and ‘Jai Bhim’ are raised together.
However, he cut short his speech as the weather turned bad.
Earlier, social activist and Samyukt Kisan Morcha leader Yogendra Yadav said that farmers of the country want legal guarantee for minimum support price.
Enacted in September, 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 expressed apprehension 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.
Tikait, on the occasion, also announced appointment of Jat leader Rajaram Meel as the state president of Bharatiya Kisan Union and Jhabar Singh as national secretary.
Meanwhile, to mark ‘Shaheed Diwas’, thousands of youth from different parts of the country on Tuesday took over the protest sites at Delhi’s borders, demonstrating their role in shaping the future of the country.
According to a statement issued by the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), thousands of youth had started arriving at the three protest sites since Monday.
There were also three ‘padyatras’, which culminated in the youth joining the protest sites in Delhi.
Hundreds of farmers are camping at Delhi’s borders points at Ghazipur, Singhu and Tikri since November last year demanding that the Centre repeal the three contentious farm laws.
March 23 is observed as ”Shaheed Diwas” to pay tribute to Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru who were executed by the British government for killing British police officer J P Saunders.
The trio wanted to avenge the death of freedom fighter Lala Lajpat Rai.
The day-long commemoration of ‘Shaheed Diwas’ at Singhu saw conferences being organised where over 60 youth activists addressed the farmers, while extending their support to the movement.
“Speakers described the current regime as anti-farmer and anti-worker,” the SKM statement noted.
The event also saw participation by young women, who “challenged the government in sharp words”.
“Women leaders from Haryana said that the dreams that Shaheed Bhagat Singh had dreamt of remain unfulfilled. Another speaker reminded us that Bhagat Singh had warned us that the country would not get freedom only by the British leaving the country; that this country would be truly independent only when the exploitation of farmers and labourers ends,” the SKM statement said.
They also presented Bhagat Singh’s views on the international conspiracy of exploitation of farmers and labourers, it added.
Similar events were organised at the Tikri border, where in large numbers, members of the Kisan Mazdoor families questioned the government on the lack of education and employment opportunities for the youth.
Speaking in solidarity with the farmers’ movement, the youth said they would not go back without securing the demands of the protests.
Soil was collected from historical places associated with the martyrs, like Sunam, Khatkad Kalan, Shri Anandpur Sahib, Shri Fatehgarh Sahib, Sarabha, Jallianwala Bagh, Hussainiwala, Shri Chamkaur Sahib and brought to the Singhu and Tikri borders, the SKM statement said.
At the Ghazipur border too, young men and women, especially from Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, pledged to make the farmers’ movement successful by “following the ideas of Bhagat Singh”.
According to the SKM, ‘Shaheed Diwas’ was also observed in other parts of the country, including Gujarat, Hyderabad and Jaipur.
“A mega rally was organised in the memory of martyrs in Khatkad Kalan, the village of Shaheed Bhagat Singh. Speaking at the rally, the youth said that whenever the country is hit by a crisis, the youth of Punjab will fight for human rights by sacrificing everything,” it said.
The Kanpur Dehat District Unit of the All India Kisan Khet Mazdoor Sangathan also organised a motorcycle march on the occasion of the martyrdom day of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev on the SKM’s call.
On March 30, farmers of the Narmada Valley will also participate in the ‘Mitti Satyagraha Yatra’ from Dandi in Gujarat, and the soil of the valley will be taken to the protest sites in Delhi, the statement said.
