The challenge to his Jat fiefdom comes from within the Jat community in the form of the maverick Bhartiya Kisan Union chief Mahendar Singh Tikait.
NEW DELHI: RLD Chief Ajit Singh is perhaps facing the toughest test of his political life. And it doesn’t come from any of the organised political parties. The challenge to his Jat fiefdom comes from within the Jat community in the form of the maverick Bhartiya Kisan Union chief Mahendar Singh Tikait. “He has been a minister in almost every government but has done nothing for the farmers. It is time for him to go,” says the 72-year-old Tikait sitting in his courtyard in Sisauli village, in the very heart of the Jat homeland of Muzzafarnagar.
Tikait’s new party, the Bhartiya Kisan Dal has put up 30 candidates in western UP and has tied up with the Congress party. His son Rajendar Tikait is a candidate from their ancestral village of Sisauli, and the senior Tikait is leaving no stone unturned to make life difficult for the RLD. Traveling mostly by tractor, the most favored mode of travel by the farmers in the area, or by foot, Tikait has been moving from village to village mobilising support for his party.
On Sunday, he had an important visitor in the form of Rahul Gandhi.
Tikait shared a dias with him, enveloped a rather bemused Rahul Gandhi in a huge bear hug describing him to be a good man and Desh Ka Bhavish (the nation’s future). He has also discovered an admiration for the Nehru Gandhi family.
“There are a famous and large-hearted people,” he said and recalled how Rajiv Gandhi as PM agreed to shift his rally to the Red Fort to allow Tikait to hold his dharna at India Gate.
Tikait also makes no bones of his admiration for Ajit’s father and the original Kisan leader Charan Singh, but he is unsparing in his criticism of Ajit Singh.
“Nobody has frittered away a legacy in the manner Ajit has. The only thing he has of his father is his blood nothing else,” fumes Tikait.
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