Lucknow, March 31: Police ringed the village of Mahendra Singh Tikait and fired on his supporters, injuring two, as stone-throwing farmers successfully resisted the arrest of their 73-year-old leader for over 24 hours.
Four others, including two policemen, were injured in the clashes that broke out last night after police arrived at Sisauli to arrest Tikait for a caste slur on chief minister Mayavati at a televised rally.
Paramilitary forces were sent to the village in Muzaffarnagar, western Uttar Pradesh, this evening as the siege rolled on and a farmers’ group from Punjab threatened to march to Sisauli and join the resistance. The police, however, managed to arrest Tikait’s son Surinder after this morning’s firing.
Tikait, the firebrand leader of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU), is popular among farmers and has led several high-profile movements against the state and central governments, including an invasion of Delhi’s streets.
At a rally yesterday afternoon in Sisauli to express state farmers’ grievances against Mayavati, he had directed a rural term, commonly used to abuse Dalit women, at the chief minister. The crowd at the meeting, attended by former Union minister Ajit Singh, rolled in laughter. But within hours, the police had issued an arrest warrant under the SC/ST act and Sisauli had turned into a battle zone.
Farmers’ units from across the country expressed support for Tikait today, some seeking the President’s intervention. “We have decided to leave for Sisauli to protest the move to arrest Tikait,” said Ajmer Singh Lakhowal, the president of the BKU’s Punjab unit.
Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav said Mayavati’s move was “a sign of her arrogance”. “Whatever Tikait said was harmless... but his statement was construed as objectionable because of the tone of his rural dialect,” Samajwadi leader Shivpal Singh Yadav said in Lucknow.
Many farmers see Tikait as their second great leader after the late Prime Minister Charan Singh.
In 1988, Tikait had clogged several Delhi roads with tractors to press for farmers’ demands in a protest dubbed the Delhi Boat Club Panchayat.
