Chandigarh: Making light of his removal from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s central decision-making body, the National Executive, former Union minister Chaudhary Birender Singh has said that for him supporting the farmers came first and all else was secondary.
The ruling party’s decision to drop him Thursday came in the backdrop of his consistent support of the farmers’ agitation over three contentious farm laws, a move that ran contrary to the BJP’s stand.
Singh even attended Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) leader Om Prakash Chautala’s rally last month, which was projected as a platform to forge a non-Congress, non-BJP front. It had triggered speculation about Singh’s next political move. He, however, rejected any suggestion of him looking out for an option outside the BJP.
“Neither am I upset with the BJP nor is the BJP upset with me. I will support farmers because before anything else, I am the keeper of the legacy of Sir Chhotu Ram. He was the tallest kisan (farmer) leader from pre-partition India. I owe everything to him and to stand with farmers is my foremost duty,” Singh told ThePrint in an interview.
“Politics and parties come later. I have supported the farmers in the past, I am supporting them today and will continue to support them in the future as well,” Singh said.
Singh is the grandson of Chhotu Ram, an illustrious farmer-politician who helped set up mandis (markets) in 1939 in united Punjab to regulate the sale and purchase of farm produce.
The ex-Union minister was in the Congress for almost four decades before he joined the BJP in 2014. His son Brijendra Singh is the sitting BJP MP from Hisar. Brijendra was an IAS officer before he joined politics.
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Birender’s support to the farmers
Singh has been sympathetic to the farmer’s agitation since December last year and has been seen supporting groups of agitating farmers at various places in Haryana under the aegis of his organisation, Chhotu Ram Vichar Manch (CRVM).
On Sunday, he tweeted about the Lakhimpur Kheri violence — in which eight people including four farmers died — demanding a thorough probe into the incident.
“I am distressed by the developments. I pray for restraint from both sides and appeal to the government that this incident should be thoroughly investigated in a time bound manner and the guilty should be punished severely… I have said earlier also that the movement should be resolved soon so that such incidents do not happen,” he said.
#LakhimpurKhiri में हुए घटनाक्रम से व्यथित हूँ। मैं दोनो पक्षों से संयम की प्रार्थना करता हूँ और सरकार से अपील करता हूँ कि इस घटना की समयबद्ध तरीक़े से गहन जाँच हो व गुनहगारों को सख़्त सजा मिले।
मैंने पहले भी कहा है कि आन्दोलन का जल्द समाधान हो ताकि इस तरह की घटनाएँ ना हों पाएँ।
— Birender Singh (@ChBirenderSingh) October 3, 2021
‘Every new party chief makes changes’
Speaking to ThePrint, Singh said his removal from the executive committee had nothing to do with his support to the farmers.
“Too much should not be read into the addition and removal of names from the national executive committee. It is a huge committee and every new party head makes changes in it. When Rajnath Singh was the president he had added and subtracted names and so did Amit Shah. Every new president does it,” Singh said.
“In J.P. Nadda’s case the list got delayed by two years because of Corona (pandemic). Removal of a name should not be seen as a message that the party is upset with anyone,” he said.
“They (BJP) have removed others as well. Rao Inderjit and Vinay Katiyar, for instance. Then the Gandhis (Maneka and Varun). That doesn’t mean they are upset with everyone,” he said.
Singh had made headlines when he attended an INLD rally on 25 September in the memory of Choudhry Devi Lal at Jind. The move had fueled speculation that he is unhappy in the BJP over the farmers’ issue and warming up to other parties.
“I went to the INLD rally because it was a ‘samman diwas’. It was organised in the memory of Devi Lal. I was invited by Chautala (Om Prakash Chautala) and since it was happening in my area I went there. The INLD had organised it as a political stage but I was not participating in it for that reason. There were people from other political parties also there,” he told ThePrint.
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