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After the day of his father and BJP President Kisan Naresh Teket was acquitted By the Muzaffarnagar Court in connection with a murder in 2003, Gaurav Teckett said, “Our family never believed in acrimony. We still have nothing against complainant Yoghraj Singh.”
Naresh Teket has been acquitted of killing fellow farmer Jagveer Singh, due to political rivalry, after a 20-year court case.
The founder of the Rashtriya Kisan Morcha Jamaat, Jagveer, was shot dead on the evening of September 6, 2003, in Alupur Majra village in Muzaffarnagar district. The family blamed the Teekets with Jagveer’s father, Naresh and prominent farm chief Mahendra Singh Teekets old rivals. They were both Jats, both members of Balian Khan, both plantation leaders, and both followers of former Prime Minister Chaudhry Charan Singh.
While Mahendra Singh formed BKU in 1987, Jagveer floated Rashtriya Kisan Morcha a year later.
It was said that their main point of contention was whether they, as plantation leaders, should enter politics. Mahendra Singh wanted to stay away and maintained that BKU was a non-political organisation. Jagveer argued that only if the plantation chiefs retained power could they ensure the improvement of the peasantry. Incidentally, Charan Singh was also of the opinion that the farmer leaders should fight for political power.
Bitterness grew between Mahendra Singh and Jagveer as the former rose in stature, becoming known nationally for his massive and widely publicized protests, even as Jagveer struggled to carve a place for himself in state politics.
The Rashtriya Kisan Morsha never took off and was dead within two years, although his political legacy was later revived by Jagveer’s son Yoghraj.
It was Yoghraj who filed a complaint a day after the murder in which Praveen Kumar, Rajeev alias Bittu and Naresh Teket were charged with murder. He said he was present when the three shot his father.
The three are arrested but released on bail. Praveen and Rajiv, both locals, died in the following years, leaving Naresh as the sole accused in the case.
In 2007, four years after the murder, Yoghraj was given a ticket by the BSP from the Khatoli Assembly constituency in Muzaffarnagar, and won it. Among those he defeated was Naresh’s brother and BKU spokesperson Rakesh Teket. By this time, the British Union was skirting its apolitical stance, and Rakesh contested the ticket of the Bahujan Kisan Dal, a registered political party formed as the political wing of the Union. Rakesh, however, came seventh in the crowds.
Apart from the Jat vote, and Dalit’s support due to his BSP’s support, Yograj’s victory is attributed to a vote of sympathy for his father’s murder. Mayawati valued him enough to make him Minister of State for Agriculture, Education and Research as she was voted into power in 2007 by a large majority.
Those five years in power were the high point of Yoghraj’s political career, as his subsequent attempts at protests were unsuccessful. In 2012, he got third place as BSP candidate from Budana in Muzaffarnagar. In 2015, he was expelled from BSP and joined RLD, which was founded by Charan Singh’s son Ajit Singh. In 2017, Budhana again fought as RLD candidate and finished 4th.
Yoghraj has since remained with the RLD, which is now headed by Ajit Singh’s son Jayant Chaudhary, though the party refused to give him a ticket from Buddhana in 2022. He was last seen leading a crowd of farmers in villages in Muzaffarnagar in January this year as part of the Kisan Sandesh Abhiyan by the Rally for Democracy. “I am with Jayant Chaudhary with all my might,” said the 44-year-old.
As for Jagveer’s murder, despite Yojraj’s claim that he was a witness to Narsh shooting his father, a police investigation and later an investigation by CB-CID found no evidence to support this.
Naresh’s lawyer Anil Kumar Jindal cites this, adding that Navneet Sekera, SSP, Muzaffarnagar, believed that the BKU leader’s name had been withdrawn to the case due to political rivalry. “The fact is that my client was not even present at the site where Jagveer Singh was shot. The complainant first named the late Mahendra Singh Teket but changed his mind and then tried to implicate Rakesh, but he was in Lucknow that day. Then he named Naresh as his co-accused,” Jindal said.
Yovraj says he will not give up his battle in court. He (Naresh) may have been acquitted by the local court, but we will challenge the verdict in the High Court and Supreme Court. We will continue our fight until justice is served for my late father.”
“The truth has prevailed,” says Naresh: “My advice to Yograj, who belongs to our family, which is a family of farmers, is to renounce the politics of hate and work for the upliftment of the peasants who need effective leaders like him.”
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