Farmer leader Rakesh Tikait 'heckled' at anti-terror rally in UP's Muzaffarnagar

NEW DELHI: The Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) has announced an urgent Kisan Panchayat to be held on Saturday at the GIC ground in Muzaffarnagar, following a tense incident at a protest rally where some participants objected to the presence of farmer leader Rakesh Tikait.

The protest, organised against the recent terror attack in Pahalgam, turned disorderly when Tikait was reportedly heckled by a group within the crowd. In the confusion, his turban came off, as shown in videos circulating online.
BKU national president Naresh Tikait confirmed the emergency panchayat and alleged that the incident was not accidental but “part of a conspiracy orchestrated by a political party to weaken the farmers' movement.”
“The incident was not spontaneous. It was pre-planned and driven by political motives,” he said, adding that farmers from across the region had started assembling in Sisauli and Muzaffarnagar for the meeting, which is expected to begin in the afternoon.
Speaking to reporters, Rakesh Tikait strongly criticised the disturbance at Friday’s Akrosh rally, which was organised by right-wing groups in protest of the Pahalgam attack.
“This is a conspiracy by a particular political party to suppress the farmers' voice. Some youths were deliberately sent to disrupt the rally,” Tikait said. He further claimed that the individuals who confronted him seemed intoxicated.
In a separate statement, Tikait announced that BKU would soon hold a tractor march in protest against the recent terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, which claimed the lives of 26 people, most of them tourists.
He said the date of the march would be finalised soon and called on the central government to take firm action against terrorism to address growing public anger.