‘Welcome to Sisauli, the land of Mahendra Singh Tikait’. So announces a board at the entrance of Sisauli village in Muzzafarnagar in west UP where the Tikaits seemed to have lost relevance since the patriarch passed away a decade ago.
But that’s no longer the case. “Rakesh vanvaas pe hain. Jeet ke vaapis aayenge toh raj-tilak hoga (Rakesh Tikait is on a mission, he will come back to a heroic welcome),” a family elder says at the Tikait residence, insisting upon a lunch of potato-carrot curry, desi ghee rotis and buttermilk.
Locals in Sisauli say it is Rakesh Tikait, Mahendra Tikait’s younger son, whose stout resistance at the Ghazipur border for a year made the Narendra Modi government retreat on the farm laws. Some others say it is Mahendra Tikait’s elder son and the president of the Bhartiya Kisan Union, Naresh Tikait, who has been the brains.
“Farmers elected a BJP government in UP in 2017. But it looks difficult for the farmers to vote for the BJP this time (in 2022)… given the opposition the party is facing from farmers,” Naresh Tikait told News18. He says the BJP needs to do much more in UP than repeal the three farm laws to woo the farmers this time. “Farmers think they have been duped and are at complete loss. No farmer is happy here — be it the issue of high electricity and diesel prices or inadequate increase in sugarcane procurement price,” he says. Naresh, however, adds that he welcomes the PM’s announcement on repealing the laws.
In the Tikait household and office, locals speak of the rising support for Jayant Chaudhary’s Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD). “Modi government had promised to double farmers’ income but it is farmers’ expenses that have doubled,” says Naresh Tikait’s son Gaurav Tikait, who is also the youth president of the farmers’ union.
He also seems more appreciative of the Samajwadi Party-RLD combine. “The biggest USP of the Yogi Adityanath government is that they improved law and order. But that is due to the ‘Dial 100’ police vehicles that come for help and were started by Akhilesh Yadav as CM,” Gaurav tells News18.
In Sisauli, word is that while Rakesh Tikait’s “tears” turned the tables on the government after there was an attempt to uproot farmers from the Ghazipur border, it is Naresh Tikait’s management and mobilisation strength that led to the big Mahapanchayat of farmers in Muzzafarnagar in September. “Farmers filled the big GIC ground in Muzzafarnagar to the brim on Naresh Tikait’s call. That sent a clear signal to the Yogi government that in west UP, the mood had changed,” say Harbir Singh and Narinder Singh, veteran farmers related to Tikait’s family.
BJP leaders in west UP anticipate a rivalry between the Tikait brothers and Jayant Chaudhary going into the elections, but the Tikaits do not speak ill of Jayant so far. “It is up to the farmers who they vote for. We never tell farmers whom to vote for and no political party should be mistaken that we will be influenced by them to say so,” Naresh Tikait tells News18, saying both brothers will not go on the political platform of any party.
Gaurav points to the farming implements that adorn the Tikait drawing room as gifts from farmers, saying this is Mahendra Tikait’s legacy.
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