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Muzaffarnagar: Farmer chieftain Mahendra Singh Tikait was arrested here on Wednesday and given bail a few hours later, ending a two-day standoff with the Uttar Pradesh government that had moved against him for allegedly making casteist remarks against Chief Minister Mayawati.
A court in Bijnor gave bail to the 73-year-old Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader against whom a warrant had been issued on Monday under the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes Atrocities Prevention Act.
He was arrested at Muzaffarnagar town, near his village Sisauli, yesterday. The controversy was sparked after Tikait allegedly abused Mayawati at a rally in Bijnor on Sunday.
In 1988, urban India for the first time witnessed the might of Jat peasant leader Mahendra Singh Tikait when he filled the expansive India Gate lawns of the capital with thousands of his supporters from western Uttar Pradesh. And it was not just a one-day show of strength.
The farmers camped out the whole week. They lived on the lush lawns, cooked their meals, and bathed in the shallow waters of the lake. The middle classes frowned at the chaotic disarray that broke out on the showpiece green lung of the capital. The government was at a loss to cope with the sudden avalanche of peasants in its well-ordered official district.
The man who had then virtually held the Boat Club under siege suddenly loomed large on the political horizon again this week after he used casteist slurs against Mayawati at a farmers' rally in Bijnor.
Tikait was arrested yesterday in his political bastion Muzaffarnagar after two days of a well publicised standoff with the Uttar Pradesh government that had filed cases against him under the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes Atrocities Prevention Act.
For the 73-year-old Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader, it was a comeback of sorts to the political hub of Uttar Pradesh, a state in which, despite a large following at his beck and call, he has never been able to open an account in the legislative assembly.
In 1986, Tikait founded the BKU. Ahead of the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, his son Rakesh started the Bharatiya Kisan Dal, the political wing of the BKU. Rakesh contested from Khatauli on a BKD ticket in the 2007 assembly elections and lost, despite tacit support from the Congress.
Tikait's unmitigated failure in the polls has been baffling, given his writ runs large in 75 constituencies in western Uttar Pradesh, which has a significant Jat community presence.
The ongoing face-off between Mayawati and Tikait has brought three major parties to Tikait's door: Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal, Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party and the Congress. It seems Tikait may finally make a mark in the electoral politics of Uttar Pradesh.
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