Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait is provoking farmers to a dangerous extent. On Thursday, while addressing a mahapanchayat at Kharak Poonia village in Haryana’s Hisar, he said, “Even if you have to set your standing crop on fire, you should be prepared for it.” “After cutting the crop, keep enough for your annual family consumption, and be prepared to burn it to mark your protest against bad farm laws. The government should not harbour the impression that farmers will return home. We will harvest crops and continue our agitation at the same time.”
Tikait also said, “Our next target is to reach Kolkata on tractors.” Obviously, it is a message that farmers would canvass against the BJP in the Assembly polls to ensure Mamata Banerjee’s victory.
Tikait told The Sunday Guardian: “We are out to change the scenario of the country. We need one month to correct the powers-that-be. We will not return until course correction by the ruling party. Farmers of Bengal are also in crisis and we will have to fight for them as well.”
Tikait has asked farmers to keep their tractors filled with fuel and facing towards Delhi’s direction. After Haryana, he said, they will be holding panchayats in other parts of the country, including West Bengal, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.
Action against cowards: Punjab BJP leader
After the humiliating defeat in Punjab urban bodies’ election, the BJP says it will act against those who indulged in indiscipline. The ruling Congress has swept the municipal polls in the state.
In view of the ongoing protest against the farm laws, a large number of BJP loyalists had refused to contest on the party’s lotus symbol. The situation became such that the party could not field even 50% candidates in over 2,200 wards. BJP general secretary Subhash Sharma said that “those who behaved like cowards and refused to contest the election on party symbol would face action.”
Rahul Gandhi at sea
“Why don’t the farmers of the sea have a ministry in Delhi to look into their grievance and welfare?” This strange query came from Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in Puducherry on Wednesday.
During his one-day Puducherry visit, Gandhi committed this faux pas while talking to fishermen. Seeing Gandhi at sea, Giriraj Singh, Minister for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, reminded Gandhi on Twitter that the ministry was set up in May 2019. Singh also offered to give him information on what work was being done by his ministry. Smriti Irani and Anurag Thakur also joined in, accusing the former Congress president of spreading lies. Interestingly, Irani tweeted in Italian.
Will Gehlot’s son contest bypoll?
Rajasthan Congress circles are abuzz with speculation that Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s son, Vaibhav, is going to contest an Assembly bypoll. Four Assembly seats have fallen vacant due to the deaths of MLAs. The names of CM’s son Vaibhav and Assembly Speaker C. P. Joshi’s son Himanshu are doing the rounds. Vaibhav Gehlot contested the Lok Sabha elections in 2019 but lost to the BJP’s Gajendra Singh Shekhawat from the Jodhpur Lok Sabha seat. Vaibhav is said to be keen to contest from the Rajsamand seat, which was held by BJP. The other three vacant seats—Vallabhnagar, Sahara, Sujangarh and—were with the Congress.
Covid vaccine for judges, lawyers?
A plea has come before the Supreme Court that judges, lawyers and the judicial staff should be injected with Covid vaccine on priority basis as it is being done in the case of frontline pandemic warriors.
Hearing the PIL filed by a Delhi High Court lawyer Arvind Singh, the apex court bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, Justice S.A. Bobde said that they “would consider this plea”.
Advocate Amit Khemka, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that the claim of judicial system for Covid-19 vaccine has not been considered. “Police, security forces, revenue officials—all these people have been given priority. But all these people, whatever they do, culminates into the judicial system. Lawyers and judges are not included in the priority list for the vaccine,” Khemka told The Sunday Guardian.
The bench, also comprising Justices A.S. Bopanna and V. Ramasubramanian, said that it will consider the petition. The court will take up the matter again after two weeks.