Samyukt Kisan Morcha slams BJP for fielding Ajay Mishra Teni from Kheri Lok Sabha seat

New Delhi, March 4

The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) on Monday condemned the BJP’s decision to field Union minister Ajay Mishra Teni from the Kheri Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh and called upon farmers to organise procession in villages across India against his candidature.

The farmers have been demanding the resignation of Teni, whose son Ashish allegedly ran his car over protesting farmers at Lakhimpur Kheri in October 2021.

“The SKM strongly protested and condemned the BJP for fielding Ajay Mishra Teni, father of main accused Ashish Mishra Teni and also the main conspirator of the dreadful Lakhimpur Kheri farmers’ massacre, in the Lok Sabha elections 2024 from Kheri seat in Uttar Pradesh,” it said in a statement.

“The peaceful protest of farmers on October 3, 2021 as part of the historic struggle against the three farm acts and on other demands was brutally attacked by running vehicles over farmers, thus killing Nakshtra Singh, Lavjeet Singh, Daljeet Singh and Gurvinder Singh and one journalist Raman Kashyap.

“The farmers’ movement has demanded dismissal and prosecution of Ajay Mishra Teni under Section 102 of the IPC and punishment but the Modi government has been protecting the Minister of State for Home during this entire period,” the SKM, an umbrella body of several farm unions, said.

According to the statement, the SKM, in coordination with the Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions (CTU) and other organisations, will face this “open challenge” of the BJP and will declare its response in the Kisan Mazdoor Mahapanchayat scheduled for March 14 at Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi.

“The SKM calls upon farmers to organise torchlight procession in the villages across India against the candidature of Teni for Kheri seat and to expose the corporate-criminal nexus under Modi Raj. The date of protest will be decided by the respective state coordination committees of SKM,” it said.

The SKM said there would not be any other call of actions at Delhi before March 14.