AAP is keen to woo the influential voter base of farmers before the parliamentary elections.
After forcing the Narendra Modi government to repeal the three farm laws, farmers, the majority of them from Punjab, are back, just before the parliamentary elections, with agitation 2.0 and want to march up to Parliament, an objective that the BJP-led Haryana government has blocked midway.
Even when the agitating farmers’ advance towards Delhi was checked in Haryana, political parties like the Congress and the AAP have sniffed an opportunity to embarrass the Modi government by sympathizing with the protesters. The Central government’s representatives held several rounds of talks with farmer leaders in Chandigarh but BJP leaders continued to blame farmer leaders of frequently shifting the goal post during talks held to defuse the agitation.
As tear gas shells exploded at Shambhu border between Haryana and Punjab amid farmer-police clashes, fiery speeches of farmer leaders showed little signs of ebbing. Yet, the current agitation appears to be on a smaller scale as compared to 2020-21 then Sanyukt Kisan Morcha had led 500 farmer groups to oppose the Central government’s three farm laws. One reason for this appears to be the decision by Rakesh Tikait, head of UP-based Bharatiya Kisan Union, to refrain from physically joining the Punjab farmers’ protest.
He, however, warned the Central government that his organisation would jump into the agitation arena if their farmer colleagues from Punjab are ill-treated or physically harmed. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and party president Mallikarjun Kharge have assured that if the party is voted to power in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, it will give a legal guarantee of MSP to every farmer as per the Swaminathan Commission.
Union Minister Anurag Thakur responded to the Congress claim by saying Congress’s guarantees have failed and the people of country have faith only in “Modi ki Guarantee”. The Congress double-speak on MSP is also evident from the fact that the UPA government had in 2010 informed Rajya Sabha in response to a question asked by Prakash Javadekar that Swaminathan Committee’s recommendation on MSP “has not been accepted by the Government” because “prescribing an increase of at least 50% on cost may distort the market.
A mechanical linkage between MSP and cost of production may be counter-productive in some cases.” For the AAP, which had made food and sanitation arrangements for the protesters on the Delhi border in 2020-21, the stakes are equally high as it has governments in the agrarian state of Punjab and in Delhi and is keen to woo the influential voter base of farmers before the parliamentary elections. AAP leader and Delhi government’s transport minister Kailash Gahlot said the demands of the farmers are genuine and every citizen is entitled to hold a peaceful protest, while his Cabinet colleague Gopal Rai alleged that the Central government was treating farmers worse than the British to suppress them.
Farmers from across the country want to peacefully travel to Delhi for protest but they are being prevented from doing so, Rai said. Punjab Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee coordinator Sarvan Singh Pandher told The Sunday Guardian that the protesters never said that they would block roads.
“It is the government that is putting up barriers,” he said. Pandher also said that the Congress was not with the protesters and the farmers considered the grand old party equally responsible for their plight. His claim, however, found few takers in Delhi’s political circles as the timing of the protest ahead of the elections and coinciding with Rahul Gandhi’s yatra point towards an attempt to create a farmrelated election agenda. The farmers, led by Jagjeet Singh Dallewal and Pandher of Sanyukt Kisan Morcha and Punjab Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee, have 12 demands.
Farmers want a law ensuring an MSP for all crops, based on the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission report, along with a complete debt waiver, a pension scheme for farmers and farm labourers, the withdrawal of the Electricity Amendment Bill 2020, and the reinstatement of the Land Acquisition Act of 2013, ensuring farmer consent and compensation at four times the collector rate.
The farmers also want the prosecution of individuals implicated in the Lakhimpur Kheri killings in which some BJP leaders were accused of attacking farmers. Interestingly, the protesting farmers also include individuals with hidden political agenda like bringing about a political revolution against the “tyrant government” an “removing Modi”. One such social media influencer and farmer protester, Tajveer Singh, has posted videos in which he claims that the current agitation was also about issues related to paramilitary forces, pension under the Agniveer scheme, Manipur and Nuh riots and the need to change the political landscape of the country.
In January 2021, on Republic Day, Delhi witnessed violence after protesting farmers broke police barricades in several areas and stormed the Red Fort, hoisting their own flags at the ramparts and raising slogans. On that occasion, security agencies had suspected the hand of “Khalistani elements” in hijacking the farmers’ protest. Similar fears are being expressed even now that anti-national elements may use the ongoing agitation to destabilise the government and promote anarchy.