|
Despite not having much in common with Punjab and Haryana farmers, squatting and blocking roads leading to respective borders with Delhi demanding a repeal of Farm laws, west UP farmers have joined the protest.
With sugarcane being the lifeline of west UP farmers, issues of delayed payments, marginal rise in State Advisory Price (SAP), rising input costs and stray cattle have emerged as the main bones of contention. This has led to heightened politicisation, with parties making beeline to take the grab the opportunity and bare its fangs against Modi-led government’s Farm laws.
After a fiasco at Ghazipur border on January 27, The Ghaziabad administration’s move to remove the blockade by Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait at UP-Delhi border aty Ghazipur on January 27, ended in a fiasco with a teary-eyed Tikait addressing media persons the next day. Hordes of emotional west UP farmers rushed to the protest site giving a new lease of life to the agitation. Since then, farmers in Meerut, Bagpat, Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Amroha and Saharanpur have organised Kisan Mahapanchyat demanding repeal of the three Farm laws.
“The stakes are not that high for farmers of UP as compared to those in Punjab and Haryana. Resentment prevails among west UP farmers over delay in cane dues by sugar factories and delay in announcement of SAP for 2020-21 cane crushing season,” said former Union minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, Sompal Shastri.
A former MP from Baghpat, Shashtri said, “The farmers here are furious as they feel they are being neglected and getting a step-motherly treatment from the Union and UP governments.’’
“During poll rallies in 2014 and 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath promised payment for cane within 14 days, failing which farmers would get interest too. However, nothing came of it,’’ added Shastri.
Muzaffarnagar farmer Nirankar Singh said, “Forget about interest on delayed payment, we got last year’s cane payment last week only after farmers stir intensified. We are waiting for payment for the last four months.”
He argued that the Khattar government in Haryana across Yamuna was paying a rate of Rs 360 per quintal for cane while the UP government was giving Rs 325.
Singh’s anger is resonating across the sugarcane belt of west UP districts of Baghpat, Shamli, Khatauli, Amroha and Muzaffarnagar even as the farmers’ stir around Delhi is fast spreading to this Jat-dominated region.
In several western UP districts, BKU has given a call for farmers’ panchayat to protest against the laws even as Tikait was himself avoiding aligning with political leaders.
But Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) is taking a lead in calling farmers’ panchayat, where BKU leaders were also participating.
In one such panchayat at Shamli on Feburary 5, a Jat Muslim dominated constituency, RLD leader Jayant Choudhary, whose caste-based party was decimated from western UP in 2017 Assembly and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, asked farmers to teach a lesson to the Yogi and Modi governments in next year’s Assembly polls.