The 'Kisan Sansad' or Farmers' Parliament is being held at Delhi's Jantar Mantar, nearly two kilometres away from the actual Parliament where the Monsoon Session is currently underway. Amidst heavy barricading and deployment of security forces, the farmers are running a parallel session at the site.
For the last 8 months, farmers have occupied the borders of Delhi, where they are protesting against the new agricultural laws enacted by the Centre. This protest sometimes becomes the cause of violence and sometimes makes its own parliament.
For this 'Kisan Sansad', the Delhi Police has mandated that only 200 people can participate in it. The Sanyukt Kisan Morcha claims that 200 leaders of 40 farmer organizations are involved in it, however, if you look closely, you will see only two prominent faces in these 200 people. One is Rakesh Tikait and the other is Yogendra Yadav. These are the same leaders who were involved in the farmers' parade on January 26, during which violence broke out.
They say, when someone enters politics in India, their only dream is to reach the Parliament by becoming an MP one day. It is considered as the biggest reward of joining politics. However, to reach there, one has to win the Lok Sabha elections. For that, votes are needed and for votes, issues are needed.
Issues are both real and fake. A lot of times, issues are created - fake dharna, fake protests and fake slogans - all these have to be done to gain attention. Starting July 22, a fake parliament of farmers has come up in Delhi, in which some people are sitting as fake MPs. These people wanted to be real MPs, but couldn't convince the voters. They have contested the real Lok Sabha elections and lost, and now they are yearning to become MPs once again by taking the support of innocent farmers.
Rakesh Tikait's home constituency is Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar and he contested his first election from the Khatauli seat in the year 2007. In this election, he was not only defeated but his security was also forfeited. Surprisingly, he fought this election on the ticket of Bahujan Kisan Dal and was also backed by Congress.
Even after this defeat, his desire to go to the Legislative Assembly and then to the Parliament never ended. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Rakesh Tikait contested from Amroha seat. Interestingly, in this seat of Uttar Pradesh, around half the population lives in villages, which means farmers form a major chunk of voters here. Despite this, Tikait, who touts himself as a farmer leader, lost and his security was forfeited here as well.
Now, when Tikait could not reach the real Parliament, he has made a fake one and today, he is in the role of a fake MP. Although it is also true that the leader who has been rejected by the people of his home constituency and does not get the support of the real farmers, can only fulfil his wishes by becoming a fake parliamentarian.
Another such leader is Yogendra Yadav. He is considered a movement expert because he somehow manages to get involved in every movement. However, you might not know that Yadav, who is playing the role of Speaker in this farmer's parliament, got his security forfeited in the real election.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Yadav was playing for Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's team and the party gave him a ticket from the Gurugram Lok Sabha seat in Haryana. In this election, Yogendra got only 4 percent votes.
Surprisingly, during the Shaheen Bagh protest, Yadav had become an expert on citizenship law. Now, he is an expert on farmers' issues.
Today, in rural areas, when a person contests the election of MP or MLA and loses, people still call them MP or MLA. These people are fond of being called 'MP Ji' and 'MLA Ji'. It is this addiction that brings these leaders to this point, which in this case, is what these two leaders are doing with the help of gullible farmers.
The question that arises now is, what do these protestors want? Is their real intention the rollback of agricultural laws? Ever since the movement started on November 26 last year, a total of 12 meetings have been held between the government and the farmers' organizations. The government has even said that it is ready to give a written guarantee on the MSP or Minimum Support Price. In a meeting, the government even assured that it is ready to put these three agricultural laws on hold for one and a half years and will form a committee to review these laws. However, despite these assurances, farmers were not ready to listen. Despite all these assurances, Rakesh Tikait says that this movement will now go on till 2024.
It seems like this movement will never end. Even if the government repeals the agricultural laws, these people will agitate for the cancellation of the Citizenship Amendment Act. If this demand is also accepted by the government, these people will start demanding the restoration of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir. This movement will not finish because it is working as fertilizer for those desires, which were never fulfilled.
