Lakhimpur Kheri Farmers Lock Stray Cattle Inside School

Lucknow: Irate farmers locked up around 70 cows and bulls inside a government primary school in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri on Tuesday alleging the lack of action by the administration to stop stray cattle from destroying their crops and causing road accidents. 

The farmers, under the Bharatiya Kisan Union’s (BKU) banner, caught hundreds of stray cattle from different parts of the district, loaded them in their tractor-trolleys and raised slogans against the BJP government demanding a permanent solution to the stray cattle problem.

“The BJP government only seeks votes in the name of cows and does politics. Several policies were made and crores of rupees were collected as tax from the public in the name of managing stray cattle but they still roam the streets,” Joginder, one of the protesting farmers, told Newsclick. “We have decided to catch the cattle and hand them to the administration.” 

The farmers also marched to the district headquarters to demand that the administration take care of stray cattle. The administration claimed to have assured the farmers to resolve the issue.

In a similar incident on January 8, farmers locked up more than 100 stray cattle inside a government primary school in Karan Khal village, Amroha district, forcing the teachers to hold classes in the open. The police lodged an FIR against 16 named and 20 unidentified persons.

Last week, the Yogi Adityanath government said it plans to implement the Mukhyamantri Khet Suraksha Yojana across the State to protect crops from stray animals. 

Damage to crops by stray animals had snowballed into a political issue before the 2022 Assembly election. Now, the state government aims to resolve the issue before the Lok Sabha election.

 “Under this scheme, the government will grant Rs 1.43 lakh per hectare to small and marginal farmers. The State Agriculture Department has prepared the scheme’s draft and will soon be sent for the Cabinet’s approval. Subsequently, the scheme will be implemented across the state,” read a statement issued by the government.

However, farmer leaders said it’s “only an election gimmick” ahead of 2024. “If the government were serious, the matter would have been resolved long ago. It has been nine years of Modi rule and six years under Yogi, but the situation hasn’t changed with farmers struggling to save their crops,” Prem Singh, a farmer, told Newsclick.