A day after he walked out of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha’s (SKM) general body meeting, Haryana farmer leader Gurnam Singh Chaduni has clarified that he has not left the movement or the protests against three farm reform laws. However, differences remain, especially with regard to his political ambitions.
Mr. Chaduni, who heads his own faction of the Bharatiya Kisan Union and is also one of the nine members of the SKM’s core committee, accused other leaders of discriminating against him and his supporters. In a statement, he explained that he walked out of Saturday’s general body of the joint farmers front, as some of his supporters — farm leaders from Punjab who are not part of the SKM — were asked to leave the meeting.
These supporters have been part of his campaign for Mission Punjab, a controversial call for farm leaders to directly contest next year’s Assembly elections. The SKM leadership has officially repudiated such an entry into the poll arena by the farmers and previously suspended Mr. Chaduni from the core committee for a week for his political statements.
Terming the ejection of his followers as the decisions of a “dictatorship,” Mr. Chaduni pointed out that other SKM leaders who have similarly violated the front’s non-political stance have not been pulled up. To protest such “injustice,” Mr. Chaduni had declared his decision to boycott the general body and core committee meetings.
On Sunday evening, he clarified that he was not leaving the SKM or breaking with the front and its objectives. However, he reiterated that he was against the double standards of the other union leaders, especially a section from Punjab. As the State polls draw nearer, the tensions within the movement remain.