BKU leader forms 'apolitical' farm group

A faction within the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) - one of the organisations at the forefront of the year-long farmer agitation against the now-repealed farm laws - on Sunday announced the formation of a new splinter group, accusing the Tikait brothers who head the BKU of being "influenced by politics" and "deviating" from the non-partisan character of the organisation.

The new splinter group is called the BKU (Apolitical) and Rajesh Chauhan is its president. It will work separately from the original BKU that has Naresh Tikait as its national president, Chauhan told reporters in Lucknow.

"We have been consistently fighting for farmers' cause for 33 years but after 13 months of agitation, when we all returned home, we saw that our leaders Naresh and Rakesh Tikait got influenced and inspired by politics. We told them this was against the principle of Mahendra Tikait; that we are an apolitical organisation and must not support any political party or participate in any political activity. However, we saw that during the Vidhan Sabha elections (in UP), our leaders directed us to support a particular political party in its campaign," Chauhan said.