NOIDA: With the eighth rounds of talks failing on Monday, the farmers protesting at the Dalit Prerna Sthal compared the central government with traditional mythological character of Rawan and said that the government was not even expressing condolences for the death of around 50 farmers at different protest sites and is possibly waiting for a century of deaths to get completed.
Farmers associated with the BKU-Lokshakti and BKU-Bhanu are set to hold a meeting with leaders of other farm organisations on Tuesday.
Although cold wave conditions are coming hard on them, causing tents to fall off and their eatables and essentials getting wet, the farmers say they are in an “aar-paar ki ladayi (fight to finish) with the government.”
“The next date is January 8. The government has surpassed the number of dates being given by the courts even. We are holding a meeting of the Sanyukt Kisan Morcha on Tuesday and are going to discuss the strategy with farmers of other outfits. What else can the farmers do? It is cold, so many farmers have lost their lives. The government is arrogant. The biggest misfortune is that the PM who tweets in every matter here and there has not even tweeted a condolence message about the death of the farmers even once,” BKU-Lokshakti national president Shyoraj Singh told TOI.
Comparing the behaviour of the government with the VP Singh government which tried to implement the controversial Mandal commission report, Singh said that the government is suffering from “buddhi rog” (wisdom disease).
“The VP Singh government woke up when hundreds of students immolated themselves. It seems that this government too is waiting for a century of farmer deaths to complete. It is a dictatorial government which doesn’t understand that farmers were your voters. If you agree to their demands, it raises your flag. Not even Rawan had so much arrogance. Even he used to express condolences on someone’s pain. In the coming days, we will have to teach them a lesson,” he said.
At the Chilla border, farmers have got aid from their counterparts in Ghazipur after their ration got spoiled due to rain.
A group of former DU students celebrated the birthday of one of them sharing eatables with the farmers.
Yogesh Kumar who is working with the India Meteorological department who turned 27 this year told TOI that they wanted to celebrate the birthday with the farmers to express solidarity with them.
“We did not get a cake but instead got rice and daal for them. Farmers are annadata and they are sitting here, suffering in cold conditions for their cause. We thought it would be best to celebrate with them,” he said.