NEW DELHI: Farmers turned out in very large numbers to attend 'Kisan Mahapanchayat' against the Centre’s controversial farm laws at the Government Inter College ground in the western Uttar Pradesh's district of Muzaffarnagar.

The 'Kisan Mahapanchayat' was called in the western Uttar Pradesh district by the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) the umbrella union of all farmers bodies which has been protesting for the past ten months and several thousand people descended in town to attend the event. 

There was a sea of people as far as one could see with roads and flyovers across the city were jam-packed with people and vehicles mostly tractors, heading towards the event venue. Although difficult to give an exact figure, according to an estimate over one lakh people mostly farmers from UP, Haryana, Rajasthan, Telangana, Karnataka, Uttarakhand and other states attended Sunday’s mega event which was addressed by leaders of all farmer unions and popular leaders like Medha Patkar.

Addressing the gathering of thousands of farmers Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait said that since the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has not been listing to their demands they will now campaign against them in the forthcoming assembly election in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

Amidst loud applause, Tikait said that he would be mobilising farmers from all caste and religions from the state and would not rest until the state government led by BJP's Yogi Adityanath was overthrown. He said that the centre has not any attempts to restart the dialogue with the farmers and had not expressed any solidarity with nearly 600 protesting farmers who had lost their lives in the past ten months.

Maintaining that during the time of his father Mahendra Singh Tikait who was a well-known farmer leader, he said that his land had always witnessed the slogan of 'Allahu Akbar and Har Har Mahadev' which speaks of uniting people but BJP talks only of dividing the masses. 

Balbir Singh Rajewal Rajewal who is the president of, BKU said that the BJP led government do not listen to anybody and they will repeat their 'vote par chot' (hit the vote) campaign which was very successful during the West Bengal assembly elections. 

Like several speakers, Swaraj India Party's leader Yogendra Yadav also referred to the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots appealing to the farmers to condemn communal politics. "Someone who makes communities fight, cannot be the true son of the nation."

BKU leaders said that the Mahapanchayat was the beginning and in the run-up to the assembly elections they would be organising several such events in as many districts as possible to campaign against the BJP in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh.  Political parties like the 

Most of the prominent opposition parties from the state, although did not participate in the event, but gave active support to the 'Mahapanchayat' especially the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) supported in different ways by setting up langars (community kitchen) and other facilities for visiting farmers.

RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary had requested the Muzaffarnagar administration to sprinkle flowers from a helicopter on the venue and participants of the event, however, city magistrate Abhishek Singh rejected the request, saying it cannot be allowed due to security reasons.