The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal lashed out at the BJP-ruled Centre over “apathetic” attitude towards the farmers who have been protesting for the last three months at Delhi’s borders — Singhu, Tikri and Ghaziabad, against the three Farm Laws.

Addressing a ‘Kisan Mahapanchayat’ in Meerut, he alleged that the January 26 violence at Red Fort was orchestrated by the BJP itself.

The Chief Minister also compared the BJP to Britishers, saying that not even the colonisers used water canons and lathis on farmers.

Criticising the Centre, he said that the three agricultural laws are death warrant for the farmers.

The Chief Minister said that it has been more than three months and 250 farmers have lost their lives while protesting against the three farm laws but the Government has done nothing about it.

He said that the central Government is under a compulsion to give the practice of farming to capitalists which will make the farmers labourers on their own farmlands. He also accused the central government of planning the violence that broke out at Lal Quila on Republic Day, saying it was the BJP workers who planned and launched the attack on Delhi.

The Kisan Mahapanchayat held in Western UP, Meerut, witnessed thousands of farmers and farm leaders, who supported the AAP national convenor when he voiced his concerns relating to the three black laws brought by the Centre. There was a wave of anger against the three black laws of the Central Government, and roars of “Repeal the farm laws’’ were coming from all ends.

Many prominent AAP leaders such as Rajya Sabha MP and Uttar Pradesh in-charge Sanjay Singh, Rajendra Pal Gautam, Lok Sabha MP and AAP Punjab leader Bhagwant Mann, UP Chief Sabhajeet Singh, Dilip Pandey, Khap leader, and farmer leaders, and several AAP MLAs were present in the Mahapanchayat.

Kejriwal said, “This is a do-or-die situation for the farmers. Before the 2014 general elections, the BJP put in their manifesto that they will implement the Swaminathan report and give 50 per cent of the price of the crop produce as the MSP. After they voted in power, the same BJP Government filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court that they will not give MSP to the farmers. They deceived the same farmers who believed them and voted for them thinking they will bring change.”

Kejriwal said that the central Government adopted all tactics to convert the stadiums into jails even threatened their Government but he did not let that happen. “BJP leaders have been saying that the MSP still exists. Tell me one mandi in UP where the farmers are getting MSP for their crops. I want to ask Yogi Ji, tell me one location or mandi in UP where the farmers are getting MSPs for their crop produce,” he said.

“Lakhs of farmers are on the roads. If there is a huge mass movement against the three farm laws, why is the Government not repealing these laws? What is its compulsion, why is it bowing down before the capitalists? This movement not only of the farmers but this is also a movement of each and every patriot of this nation,”he said.

AAP senior leader Sanjay Singh said, “We are here today to give a message to the country. We have to make the voice of these farmers reach the parliament. It is these farmers who will bring a change. Delhi CM is the one who did not bow down to the demands of the centre for changing the stadiums into jails, he is the one to provide all services to the farmers sitting on the borders of Delhi,” he said.Another party’s senior leader Rajendra Pal Gautam said, “PM Modi had always maintained that he will not let the nation be a sell-out but he has himself sold the nation today.

“These farm laws have been made for the benefit of these capitalist friends of the PM and the BJP. Delhi CM has improved the education and health system of Delhi, provided free electricity, improved infrastructure. If Delhi could do it, UP could do it too but the government here lacked the intent,” he added.

The farmers have been protesting at the  borders along with Delhi against the three newly enacted farm laws - Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; the Farmers Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and farm Services Act 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.