Meerut: A 96-year-old farmer, Balbeer Singh from Sisauli village, staged a protest at Partapur police station in Meerut on Thursday, threatening to end his life over farmers’ demands. Singh, a former associate of late Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Mahendra Singh Tikait, arrived on a bicycle with cow dung cakes, built a pyre and has been lying on it for over 20 hours.
The protest, which began on Sept 27 night, is in response to the rejection of 102 nomination papers out of 255 candidates for 143 seats for the sugarcane cooperative society elections in Mawana and Mohaddinpur sugar mills. Bablu Chaudhary, district vice-president of BKU (Tikait), said, “The district administration has conspired to disqualify the nomination papers of 80 out of 84 villages.”
A video of the incident has got widely circulated online. Protesters set up furnaces and cooked meals inside the police station, where they forcefully entered with tractors, laid mattresses, and smoked hookahs.
“We want our delegations elected on farmers’ votes and want this election to be cancelled and a re-election held. We also demand an FIR against the election officer for conspiracy against farmers,” Chaudhary said.
“The protest shows no sign of ending until the demands are met,” said a senior official, requesting anonymity.
DM Meerut Deepak Meena told TOI, “We are in talks with the farmers in the matter.”