The past year has seen several big protests held by farmer organizations, including in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The anger coincides with opinion polls that suggest the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has been slowly losing support among framers.
And in UP, the opposition parties are planning to utilize this in the coming parliament elections.
According to the Mood of the Nation (MOTN) surveys conducted by Delhi-based Centre for Study of Developing Societies-Lokniti, 42% of farmers had a positive assessment of the NDA government on its ability to address farmers’ woes in May 2017, immediately after the BJP’s victory in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. This went down by one percentage point in January 2018 and then fell to 30% by May 2018.
For the first time in the past few years after the death of BKU founder Mahendra Singh Tikait in 2011, farmers came out united in support of their demands against the government. BKU has a strong social impact in western UP and this Yatra has ended with strengthening it further.
The farmers’ ire grew when Delhi police lathi-charged them at the UP border on 2 October to foil their attempt to reach Kisan Ghat as part of the Bharatiya Kisan Union’s Kisan Kranti Yatra.
The RLD, which is also known as the party for farmers right from the time of the late PM Chaudhary Charan Singh, has a strong political base which had dwindled after the fierce communal riots of Muzaffarnagar in 2013 but it has started reviving again.
It is believed that the extensive traveling and individual meetings of Ajit Singh and his son Jayant Chaudhary have worked in the RLD’s favour. This plan is being reintroduced in western UP.
Jayant is starting a padayatra in Modinagar and plans to farmers and others to expose the anti-farmer face of the BJP and invite them to support RLD.
This area is part of the Baghpat Lok Sabha constituency where Ajit Singh lost the previous election. In his long political career, Ajit Singh has lost from Baghpat only twice.
Opposition leaders believe that this is the right time to expose the BJP among farmers as they are annoyed about the incident at the UP border and want to teach the BJP a lesson in the general election. Farmer politics is important in western UP as most political parties have realized.
Since the heat is on after the Kisan Kranti Yatra of BKU, the opposition wants to take the fight further so that it proves to be an advantage in the 2019 election.
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