The national spokesperson of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) Rakesh Tikait participated in India TV Conclave on Saturday (January 29). He started fighting with Moderator Saurav Sharma when the photo of Ayodhya’s Shri Ram Temple appeared on the screen.
The Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) National Spokesperson Rakesh Tikait participated in the India TV Conclave on Saturday (January 29). India TV Senior Executive Editor Saurav Sharma was moderating the show.
All hell broke loose when a photo of Shri Ram Temple in Ayodhya appeared on the screen. Rakesh Tikait lost his cool and started fighting with the moderator.
Shri Tikait started shouting at the moderator alleging he was campaigning for a political party.
“Why are you showing this temple here? This is not the issue. Who asked you to put this picture here? You press people can not campaign for anybody. The press is trying to destroy the country,” Shri Tikait said.
Moderator Saurav Sharma retorted saying Shri Tikait can’t shout him down and the agenda for elections is decided by political parties and their leaders and not TV anchors.
“We had invited you as a farmer leader but you started talking about temple and mosque,” Moderator Sharma said.
Shri Tikait, who was one of the prominent figures of the farmers’ protest last year at Delhi borders, had picked fight with press persons multiple times in the past.
In the farmers’ protest last year, he ridiculed a Republic TV reporter and his supporters chased away an Aaj Tak reporter. Any media person associated with any media house which has been critical of him or the farmers’ protest gets a harsh treatment from him.
Former Delhi Police constable had quit the services in 1992 to join his father’s organisation BKU.
In the past he tried his luck in politics too but without success. In 2007 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, he contested from Khatauli assembly seat as a Bharatiya Kisan Dal (BKD) candidate. He could manage only 9095 votes and was placed at distant sixth place.
Again in 2014 general elections, he contested Amroha Lok Sabha constituency as an RLD candidate but could get only 9539 votes, 0.62 percent of the electors in the constituency. In the past few weeks, Shri Tikait is also hobnobbing with Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Jayant Chaudhary.
As reported by the Organiser in March last year, a young college student was attacked on the stage by Rakesh Tikait and his supporters when she had asked questions about the Republic Day violence in Delhi.
On Republic Day in 2021, protesting farmers had taken out a protest tractor rally to Delhi’s Red Fort which had turned violent as the protestors started vandalising private properties and vehicles on the way. They also desecrated the Red Fort and Tiranga.
