Rakesh Tikait | The constable-turned-crusader

For months, authorities spokespersons and a bit of the media have been on the lookout for a frontrunner among the many consortium of greater than three dozen farmer unions protesting towards the farm legal guidelines. On the evening of January 28, they lastly discovered one in Rakesh Tikait, the national spokesperson of the Bhartiya Kisan Union, who broke down earlier than the media, alleging that there’s a “conspiracy against farmers”.

His critics may name his emotional outburst a wise political transfer however Rakesh Tikait, the second son of Mahendra Singh Tikait, the mercurial farmer chief who revived the BKU within the late Eighties with a string of dramatic protests in Muzaffarnagar and Meerut towards the then Congress authorities, supplied a brand new spark together with his tears and tenacity to the dying embers on the Ghazipur border protest website. Till January 28, the BKU was simply taking part in a supporting function at Singhu and Tikri.

In truth, when Mr. Tikait first emerged on the U.P. Gate on Ghazipur border on December 28 with scores of his supporters, the impression was that he can be utilized by the ruling social gathering as a bulwark to maintain the restive Punjab and Haryana farmers in examine. Even these within the All India Kisan Sangharsh Committee took time to imagine his dedication.

After the dramatic turns of occasions on Thursday, the Ghazipur border turned the gravitational centre pulling in help. And the 51-year-old constable-turned-farmer chief emerged as an unlikely hero.

Media savvy all alongside, he maintained that he voted for the BJP however the social gathering didn’t reside as much as its guarantees. In the early days of the protest, his issues have been as a lot about pending cost of sugarcane crop, rising costs of diesel and electrical energy because the farm legal guidelines. “The government is looking to privatise agriculture and is looking at farmers just as labour,” he informed The Puucho in early December. He courted controversy when he requested temple trusts to donate to the farmer protest as they do through the Kanwar Yatra (an annual Puucho pilgrimage).

Also learn: A field day for Rakesh Tikait

The native BJP leaders and Ghaziabad administration failed to understand that their political clout may need diminished however the standing of Mahendra Singh Tikait and Chaudhary Charan Singh clans stays intact in western U.P. The ties between the 2 households had turn into tenuous after the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, however on Thursday, Ajit Singh, Charan Singh’s son and chief of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), was the primary one to name Mr. Tikait to say that he’s there for the farm chief.

Support pours in

Mr. Tikait’s breakdown video, together with a tweet of help by RLD vice-president Jayant Chaudhary, unfold like wildfire within the sugarcane belt of U.P., Haryana and Rajasthan. His tears have been seen as an insult to the farmer’s dignity and an enormous crowd turned up for a farmers’ ‘Mahapanchayat’ known as by the BKU in Muzaffarnagar and Mathura.

More importantly, it bolstered his place as an undisputed chief of farmers in western Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. After his rival V.M. Singh of the Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sangathan left the protest website on Wednesday, holding Mr. Tikait accountable for the Republic Day incidents, Mr. Tikait warned towards utilizing the incident to tarnish the Sikh neighborhood. “We rushed to Ghazipur once we heard his outburst. He is our sole leader now,” stated Sewak Singh Siddhu, a outstanding farmer from Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand. Shamim Hussain, a farmer from Bulandshahr, who reached the protest website to supply water to Mr. Tikait, noticed hope within the revival of the Jat-Muslim amity that marked the area earlier than the Muzaffarnagar riots. Interestingly, it was after the riots that the Tikait brothers, Rakesh and Naresh, step by step tilted in the direction of the BJP.

Senior BJP chief Rajnath Singh had supported Rakesh Tikait throughout his protest towards the Congress authorities forward of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. However, Mr. Tikait didn’t fully burn his bridges with Ajit Singh. He fought the 2014 election on the RLD ticket from Amroha, ending fourth.

Rajvir Singh, a veteran BKU hand, who has labored intently with the Tikait brothers, says although the pagdi of Baba Tikait handed on to the elder brother, it’s Rakesh Tikait who’s the true heir of his father’s legacy. “While Naresh limited himself to Muzaffarnagar, the more astute Rakesh accompanied his father to the protest sites. Police detention and jail are not new to him.”