Gurnam Singh Chaduni, the head of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), inaugurated his new party, Sanyukt Sangharsh Party, on Saturday. Chaduni announced today at a news conference that the party intends to run in all 117 seats in Punjab’s next elections. He did, however, clarify that he would not run for office in Punjab. For more than a year, Chaduni spearheaded the farmers’ movement against the Centre over the three agricultural laws, and he was key in mobilising farmers from Punjab and Haryana at the Delhi borders. In November of this year, the laws were abolished.
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“I’m not running in the Punjab elections; instead, I’m assembling others to run and presenting a model” (of governance). For the polls, we will start our own political party. “If our government comes to Punjab, the entire country would look up to the Punjab model in the 2024 (national) elections,” the BKU leader had remarked at the time. Apart from participating in farmer demonstrations, Chaduni was also influential in the border state of Haryana. Chaduni has been protesting farmers’ difficulties in Haryana for more than a decade, using tactics such as climbing water tanks, standing in the middle of a river for days, and leading a procession of semi-clad farmers.
On Chaduni’s orders, demonstrators attempted to march to a BJP gathering in Karnal on August 28, which was attended by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and others. Several farmers were hurt in the police raid, which put the Khattar government on the defensive, with unsavoury occurrences like as the removal of Sub-Divisional Magistrate Ayush Sinha.
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The BJP and JJP, on the other hand, accuse Chaduni of “politics.” “Through the agitation, he wants to become the next Arvind Kejriwal,” Haryana Home Minister Anil Vij said. “Chaduni is acting on the directions of the Congress,” Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Minister J P Dalal claims. He is an arhtiya, not a farmer leader.”
