No ‘ekta’ in largest farm body: Expelled BKU Ugrahan rebels form BKU Azad

“Initially, we have formed a nine-member committee and in the coming weeks, we will decide about president and other office-bearers of the new union,” said Manjit Singh Niyal, one of the nine committee members. He was earlier Patiala district president of BKU Ekta (Ugrahan), which was formed in 2002.

Though differences among a few members had been there for more than a year, things worsened when BKU Ekta (Ugrahan) expelled Jaswinder Singh Longowal from the union.

“He was the state vice-president, but we expelled him from the primary membership of the union because of his continuous anti-union activities. This decision was taken last month. It is good that such people, who have created indiscipline in the union, have gone out. This will strengthen our kisan union,” said Sukhdev Singh Kokrikalan, general secretary of BKU Ekta (Ugrahan), while reacting to the formation of the new union.

The committee members of the BKU Ekta (Azad) are Jaswinder Singh Longowal, Manjit Singh Niyal, Gurmail Singh Mahauli, Gurdev Ganjumajra, Karnail Singh Lang, Dilbagh Singh Harigarh, Gurpreet Kaur Brass, Devinder Kaur Hardaspur, etc.

Niyal said, “Because of dictatorship in the union, we have split from it and formed Azad union which will be open to ideas and won’t be rigid.”

Before the farm stir against the now-repealed three farm laws, BKU Ekta (Ugrahan) had units in about 600 villages of Punjab which rose to about 2,000 during the agitation. Later it settled at about 1,500.

Kokrikalan said, “Let them say whatever they want. We had given them a year to explain their anti-union activities.”