Farmer leader Rakesh Tikait reached Sirsa on Saturday after several unions gave a call to gherao the district police chief’s office over sedition and attempt to murder cases against 100 farmers for July 13 protest that had turned violent.
Ahead of his visit, the district administration invited farmer leaders for talks and a farmers’ delegation led by Tikait will be meeting senior officers in a short while.
While addressing the farmers, Tikait said, “The state government should realise that they should not indulge in a fight with us. Our fight is with the union government. The state government should realise that when the Union government has failed to push farmers back, even they can not dare to do so”.
Drawing a comparison between farmers and soldiers, Tikait added, “It is this farmer only that goes to the border and fights for the country’s honour and is called a soldier. The same soldier, when comes back to his fields, drives his tractor. We shall call our tractors, tanks only. These tanks [tractors] only will break police barricades. The same soldier, when he sits on the computer, uses Twitter. So, the state government shouldn’t underestimate us and do not instigate us. We shall set up pucca morchas and you all should have langar and stay firm.”
Taking a dig at the Haryana BJP leadership, Tikait said, “The chief minister [Manohar Lal Khattar] is roaming around in Delhi so that he can avoid this confrontation with us here. The home minister [Anil Vij] is trying hard to become the chief minister. That is the state of affairs of this government. They can continue making their efforts, but should not provoke us. Our fight is not with them [state government]. The day we shift our aim at them, they will know our power. We just want that our farmers who have been arrested should immediately be released and the sedition cases registered against them should be withdrawn.”
A large number of farmers from across the state have reached Sirsa in their tractor-trolleys and private vehicles. At certain places, farmers have entered into brief altercations with the police, broke police barricades to reach the venue of their assembly at Shaheed Bhagat Singh Stadium.
