BKU leader Tikait left to plough a lonely furrow

LUCKNOW, DEC 27: Gone are the days when just one call by Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Mahendra Singh Tikait used to paralyse life in t...

LUCKNOW, DEC 27: Gone are the days when just one call by Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Mahendra Singh Tikait used to paralyse life in the entire western Uttar Pradesh belt and even in Delhi.

Last week’s poor response to the BKU agitation at Muzaffarnagar over sugarcane prices has exposed Tikait’s waning popularity among the farmers. This might also be the end of the phenomenon that Tikait had come to symbolise during the past one decade.

Bereft of his mass following, Tikait had to court arrest yesterday at Muzaffarnagar district headquarters with only one BKU supporter, Vipin Mukhia. He was immediately packed to Agra jail.

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According to BKU’s schedule, residents of Jaitpur and Bhaurakalan villages were to court arrest yesterday. However, when Tikait visited the two villages, he found no one willing to court arrest with him. Only 100-odd BKU supporters have so far courted arrest during the past one week on his call.

Tikait had given a call for a snap strike on December 15 as he himself led a handful of supporters in staging a sit-in at Muzaffarnagar railway station. The dharna was against the Kalyan Singh Government’s decision to ensure sugarcane payments through banks instead of through cane societies.Tikait, however, abandoned the dharna on the third day following the Government’s decision to arrest those disrupting rail or road traffic and went back to Sisauli. The police arrested around 100 farmers camping at the railway station and sent them to Fatehpur jail.

Kalyan Singh also quelled isolated protests by BKU activists at a few places in western UP. Tikait’s failure to manage a strong protest against the Government action angered his supporters who did not turn up at the Kisan Mahapanchayat called by him at Sisauli on December 20.

A split in the BKU earlier this year has further complicated matters for Tikait. Moreover, the breakaway faction led by Rishipal Ambawata is expected to support the BJP in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls. Ambawata has made his intentions very clear that unlike Tikait, his would be a farmers’ outfit out to support a “national party”.

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“Farmers’ interest can be protected only by the political party in power,” claimed a senior member of the Ambawata faction, hinting at a possible tie-up with the BJP.