After a couple of tense nights at the Delhi-UP Ghazipur border, Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait hit a conciliatory note while promising that that the farmers will not let the government bow its head before the world. He asked the Centre to explain to farmers why it does not want to repeal the three farm laws.
The younger son of Bharatiya Kisan Union's late president Mahendra Singh Tikait, Rakesh had emerged the foremost leader of the stir when he made a highly resonant, emotional appeal to the farmers to join the stir and saying he will protest till his last breath.
"What is the compulsion of the government that it is adamant on not repealing the new farm laws? The government can tell its reasons to farmers and we [farmers] are the kind of people who believe in the panchayat system. We will never let the government bow its head in shame in front of the world," Tikait said. "We have an ideological fight with the government, something which can neither be fought with sticks and guns nor suppressed by them. The farmers will return home only when the new laws are repealed," the BKU national spokesperson asserted.
Support for the farmers' protest swelled on Saturday, as more villagers poured in at a key protest site on the Delhi-Meerut highway in Ghazipur on the border with Uttar Pradesh.
The Bharatiya Kisan Union-led protest against the Centre's new farm laws looked stronger than ever as more protestors joined the stir, following a mahapanchayat of farmers on Saturday in Muzaffarnagar, while supporters also joined in from Haryana and Rajasthan districts.
The administration remained on high alert with internet services temporarily suspended at the Singhu, Ghazipur, and Tikri borders of the national capital, as well as in the adjoining areas. Haryana has also suspended mobile internet services in 17 districts till Sunday evening.
Security personnel, including anti-riot police and paramilitary forces, were deployed in strength. Multiple layers of barricades including concrete blocks had been put at the protest sites.
Wearing garlands, the farmer leaders, who had called for observing 'Sadbhavana Diwas' (Harmony Day) on Saturday after the immense outrage over violence by protesters during their Republic Day tractor rally, sat on the dais during the fast.
-Inputs from PTI
