UP elections: BKU chief Naresh Tikait takes back call to support SP-RLD alliance

Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) chief Naresh Tikait on Tuesday (January 18) has backpedalled on his earlier call to support the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party and the Ajit Singh-helmed Rastriya Lok Dal alliance in the upcoming elections.

Stating in Hindi that ‘Hum thoda sa faltu bol gaye. Hume aisa nahi kehna chayiye tha (I talked a bit silly. I should not have said so), he quickly added that they cannot afford to act contrary to the decision taken by the SKM (Samyukt Kisan Morcha) or else they would “expel” them too.

The SKM, an umbrella body that spearheaded the agitation against the now-repealed agri laws, on Sunday (January 16) had cut off ties with the farmers’ groups that have jumped into the election fray. According to newspaper reports, sources said that Naresh Tikait went back on his word to support the SP alliance after his brother Rakesh Tikait and BKU spokesperson opposed backing any political party during the elections.

On January 14, Naresh Tikait had blessed the RLD candidates from Budhana and Meerapur seats of Muzaffarnagar at the BKU headquarters in Sisauli village.

“Wherever there are candidates of the (SP-RLD) alliance, make them win,” he said in a video of the gathering.

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BKU general secretary Yudhveer Singh however later clarified that Naresh Tikait may have got “carried away” and his words must be seen as a “social courtesy”. The BKU has maintained that it is an apolitical outfit.

Naresh’s attempt to extricate himself from being seen as supporting one political party in the elections came soon after Union Minister and BJP MP Sanjeev Balyan paid a visit to the Tikaits’ ancestral home in Sisauli.

His recent comments also comes in the wake of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav taking an “anna sankalpa” pledge to stand by farmers and defeat the BJP in the upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh. Along with an SKM leader, Tejender Virk, who was injured in the Lakhimpur Kheri incident on October 3, and other Lakhimpur Kheri farmers by his side, Yadav, dramatically took fistfuls of rice and wheat in his hands and said that the SP takes anna sankalp to remove and defeat the BJP guilty of carrying out atrocities against farmers.

The SP chief made a slew of farmer-centric promise, which included a minimum support price for all crops, a fund to pay their arrears, provide them with interest-free loans and give Rs 25 lakh to each of the families of the farmers who had died in the Lakhimpur Kheri incident.