DM Monitoring
NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) has called on youth of Noida adjoining Delhi in western Uttar Pradesh to join a proposed strike on March 26 over issues like unemployment, an office-bearer of the farmers’ union said on Tuesday.
The BKU supporters are camping at Ghazipur on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border since November 2020 over demand for repeal of the contentious farm laws and a legal guarantee on the minimum support price (MSP) for crops.
“BKU spokesperson Rakesh Tikait has called on the youth in Noida to join the ‘chakka jam’ on March 26. The BKU members won’t put up any blockade in Noida but we have extended support to the ‘chakka jam’,” BKU’s media in-charge Dharmendra Malik told PTI. Tikait has called on the youth to join the protest over issues like unemployment, Malik added.
Earlier on Monday Defence Minister Rajnath Singh urged dialogue between the protesting farmers and the Centre while addressing a meeting of BJP office-bearers, during which he also invoked the border clashes with China and the construction of the Ram temple.
Making an appeal to farmers upset over the new agri-marketing laws, the senior BJP leader said any problem can be resolved through talks.
“The BJP resolve is to double the farmers’ income, and in no case the MSP will end,” he said, referring to the apprehension among farmers camping at Delhi’s borders for months now.
“We are all from farmers’ families and we are ready for amendments and solutions, whatever is needed in the interest of agriculture,” Singh said at the inaugural meeting of the Uttar Pradesh BJP executive committee.
Meanwhile on Monday Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait said the farmers’ stir against the Centre’s agri marketing laws would go on till December and
future course of action would be decided then if the laws are not repealed.
Speaking at a rally in Sihora, some 45 kilometres from the district headquarters, Tikait said the MSP mechanism was irrevocable and farmers would not sell their produce below it. Several posters with his image were torn down at the rally venue last night, and Tikait reacted by saying such
action would have not any bearing on the farmers or their protests.
He said ruling BJP leaders who want to join the farmers’ protest are welcome, and added that a governor, though he did not name anyone, was among those who was supportive.
