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New Delhi: Rakesh Tikait, one of the leaders of the nearly year-long farmers’ movement at Delhi’s borders, has given the Union government the deadline of November 26 to take back the farm laws against which the protest is taking place.
November 26 will mark one year of the ongoing farmers’ protests at Delhi’s border points of Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur.
Tikait tweeted that after that date, farmers will escalate the movement by arriving at the protest sites at Delhi’s borders in tractors from villages and strengthen the tents there with “solid fortifications.”
केंद्र सरकार को 26 नवंबर तक का समय है, उसके बाद 27 नवंबर से किसान गांवों से ट्रैक्टरों से दिल्ली के चारों तरफ आंदोलन स्थलों पर बॉर्डर पर पहुंचेगा और पक्की किलेबंदी के साथ आंदोलन और आन्दोलन स्थल पर तंबूओं को मजबूत करेगा।#FarmersProtest
— Rakesh Tikait (@RakeshTikaitBKU) November 1, 2021
A day ago, Tikait told the Union government that there will be consequences if the government tried to remove the protesters with force.
“If there is an attempt to forcibly remove farmers from the borders, then they will make government offices across the country into grain markets,” he wrote in Hindi.
किसानों को अगर बॉर्डरो से जबरन हटाने की कोशिश हुई तो वे देश भर में सरकारी दफ्तरों को गल्ला मंडी बना देंगे ।#FarmersProtest
— Rakesh Tikait (@RakeshTikaitBKU) October 31, 2021
Both tweets by Tikait appear to be responses to what he has claimed to be information that the Uttar Pradesh government has been attempting to “pull down tents” at Ghazipur with the help of JCB machines.
We have come to know that the administration is trying to pull down the tents here with the help of JCB. If they do that, the farmers will set up their tents at Police stations, DM offices: Rakesh Tikait, BKU leader at Ghazipur (Delhi-UP) border pic.twitter.com/kl684sxsmM
— ANI (@ANI) October 31, 2021
The protests are led by farmers collective Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM). The Bharatiya Kisan Union, which Tikait heads and supporters of which are at protesting at Ghazipur on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border, is also a part of the SKM.
Hundreds of farmers have camped through a health crisis and brutal weather conditions at three Delhi border points since November 2020 with the demand that the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, Farmers’ (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020 be rolled back and a new law made to guarantee minimum support price for crops.
The Union government and the farmers’ unions sat for rounds of talks but the former has been unwilling to agree to the repeal. The talks were stopped by the Union government after farmers’ protests in New Delhi on January 26 met with police barricades and a section turned violent.