Lay seige to Bengaluru with tractors to protest farm laws: Farmer leader Rakesh Tikait

A woman participates in a protest against new farm laws in Mumbai, India, Saturday, Feb. 6, 2021. Tens of thousands of protesting Indian farmers blocked highways across the country for three hours Saturday to press their demands for the repeal of new agricultural laws. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

Farmer leader Rakesh Tikait has exhorted farmers of Karnataka to lay siege to Bengaluru with their tractors in protest against the three contentious farm laws passed by the Centre and convert the city to the focal point of agitation, like in Delhi. "….you have to turn Bengaluru into Delhi. You will have to lay siege to the city from all directions," he told a farmers' mahapanchayat here late on Saturday.

Only tractors should be used, like in Delhi, where over 25,000 have blocked entry points to the city, he said.

Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, have been camping at the Delhi border points — Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur — for over three months, demanding the repeal of farm laws and a legal guarantee on the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for their crops. Tikait claimed that lakhs of farmers and their families have laid siege to Delhi by agitating at the border points and said the stir would continue until the three laws are repealed.

"Unless the three laws are repealed, unless there is a law related to the MSP, you need to continue this agitation in Karnataka as well," Tikait said.

He said though the stir was to repeal the three farm bills, there were other 'controversial' bills in the pipeline, aimed at grabbing farmers' lands, forcing them to work as daily wagers in factories.

"Besides these three laws, other bills pertaining to milk, electricity, seed and pesticides will also be introduced," he said. Tikait alleged that privatisation of banks would result in farmers who have availed of loans through Kisan Credit Cards, with land as collateral, being asked to surrender them.

"If the farmers do not have money to repay the loans, then they will take away your land," he alleged.

The government's target is to ensure that in the next 20 years, all the land goes to the banks and companies and the farmers become labourers, he charged. The farmer leader, son of illustrious farmer leader Mahendra Singh Tikait, has taken the mantle of farmers' agitation along with his brother Naresh Tikait around Delhi and has been conducting public meetings in various parts of the country against the farm bills.