Samyukta Kisan Morcha’s push for unity boomerangs, fissures widen

Among the nine members of the SKM’s top decision-making committee, Balbir Singh Rajewal and Gurnam Singh Charuni wanted the organisation to contest polls and they were expelled last December over the issue. On December 25, Rajewal, who had played a crucial role in the SKM’s formation, floated the Samyukta Samaj Morcha (SSM) comprising 22 farm unions. Charuni’s Sanyukt Sangharsh Party (SSP) extended support to the SSM and the two outfits decided to contest the Punjab Assembly polls together. But the SSM failed to put up a united front and by the end of its campaign, only 13 of the 22 original unions remained. This lack of unity and absence of a coherent electoral strategy led to the SSM’s failure to make any impact and 93 of its 94 candidates lost their security deposit.

On July 3, at a meeting in Ghaziabad in the National Capital Region, the SKM decided to take back 16 unions that had broken ranks with it to either join the SSM or back it. However, SKM members Jagjit Singh Dallewal, the president of BKU Sidhupur (Punjab), and Shiv Kumar Kakka of the Rashtriya Kisan Maha Sangh (Maharashtra) boycotted the meeting and called on “non-political” farmers’ organisations to assemble in New Delhi on July 12.

“We not only opposed this idea but also did not attend the July 3 meeting as we had been writing to the SKM saying it should not do it,” said Dallewal. “These 16 farm unions now claim that they have no connection with the SSM. But the fact is that many of the union leaders who are back contested the polls.”

Dallewal alleged that a few members of these unions initiated talks with Union Home Minister Amit Shah through backdoor channels without informing the SKM leadership. “Hence, a large number of unions never want them to be back. So, we initiated talks with many farm unions across the country and on July 12 a meeting of non-political farmer unions will be held in Delhi. We are expecting unions from Punjab, Haryana, UP, Rajasthan, Odisha, and Uttarakhand to attend the meeting.”

In response, SKM committee member Dr Darshan Pal said, “Farmers fought against the farm laws under the banner of 32 farmers’ unions of Punjab. Now, only five remain outside the SKM while the rest are all back. We know Dallewal and Kakka have called a separate meeting on July 12. Let us see what happens in that meeting. The 16 unions that are back have stated they now have no connection with the SSM. Hence, one should be flexible for the sake of the unity of farmers’ unions. They (Dallewal and Kakka) do have objections about the backdoor channel talks, we are in touch with them.”

The holdouts

The five farm unions that Pal said were still outside the SKM fold are BKU (Rajewal), BKU (Mansa), the All India Kisan Federation (AIKF), the Kisan Sangharsh Committee (Kanwalpreet Pannu), and the Azad Kisan Sangrash Committee of Harjinder Singh Tanda.

Asked why they were not rejoining the SKM, AIKF Punjab president Prem Singh Bhangu said, “The SKM was formed on a common minimum programme to fight for the repeal of the farm laws. Most union leaders in the SKM had already contested elections earlier. Hannan Mollah is a former CPI MP and still a member of the CPI, Yogendra Yadav has his own political party, and Rakesh Tikait had contested polls. Imposing this condition that people who contest polls will not be part of the SKM is a dictatorship by a few members who want to break the organisation. The goal of the SKM is to fight for farmers’ issues. Hence, we are standing by our principles and are not ready to consider this condition of the SKM.”

Bhangu said the government wanted to break the protesters’ unity when the anti-farm law agitation was going on. “But we stayed together irrespective of different ideologies. Now, strange diktats of a few SKM members are the reason why unions are not united.”