LUCKNOW: Taking cognizance of Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait’s warning, the management of two cooperative sugar mills in Belrayan and Sampurna Nagar of Kheri district hanged their crushing season-opening programme removing Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra Teni from the inaugural function which was held on Wednesday.
Tikait, at a mahapanchayat in Lucknow on Monday, had warned that farmers would take their sugarcane meant for two Lakhimpur Kheri sugar mills to the office of the district magistrate if Union minister of state (MoS) Ajay Kumar Mishra Teni inaugurated the mills in UP’s Lakhimpur Kheri.
Teni’s son Ashish Mishra alias Monu is the prime accused in Tikunia violence at Lakhimpur Kheri during which eight persons, including four farmers, were killed on October 3. Ashish Mishra is currently lodged in Lakhimpur Kheri district jail in connection with a violence case.
In their revised programme, the general manager/secretary of the two cooperative sugar units said, “Kheri district magistrate, who is also the administrator of the two sugar mills, will inaugurate the crushing season in Sarju Cooperative Sugar Mill in Belrayan at 9 am and at 11 am at Kisan Cooperative Sugar Mill in Sampurna Nagar in the presence of farmers and the shareholders on Wednesday.”
Earlier, MoS for home Ajay Mishra was scheduled to inaugurate the crushing season at the two sugar units.
Speaking at the Kisan Mahapanchayat convened by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of protesting farmer unions, in Lucknow on Monday, Tikait had also said, “The arrest of Ajay Mishra Teni is our important demand.”
Meanwhile, local BJP sources claimed that MoS was already pre-occupied in his pre-scheduled programmes out of district owing to which he was not in a position to inaugurate the fresh crushing season.