Bihar Assembly Election 2020: BJP to conduct town halls to woo farmers and women

Women are considered an important vote bank in Bihar and the party wants to pacify farmers in the wake of the protests over the new farm legislations

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is all set to woo farmers and women voters in Bihar by reaching out to them with a list of policy interventions that have been announced in the past five years of the NDA government at the Centre as well as in the state.

In the last assembly election in 2015, women voter turnout stood at 60.48% while for the men the number was 53.32%. (Representational Photo/HT)

Women voter turn-out in the previous elections has surpassed that of male voters and women are considered an important vote bank in Bihar and the party wants to pacify farmers in the wake of the protests over the new farm legislations.

According to people aware of the details, the party has planned town halls targeted specifically at women and farmers in the run-up to the three-phase election starting October 28. These will be supplemented with outreach via smaller groups across the state, keeping in view the protocol for physical distancing.

A similar initiative was taken to reach out to the 15 million people aged between 18 and 25. Bihar election in-charge Devendra Fadnavis and the newly appointed head of the Yuva Morcha, Tejasavi Surya addressed the town hall this week.

Senior ministers and functionaries of the party are expected to address these meetings that will be held virtually as well as with a limited audience in some places. “These town halls give an opportunity to the masses to ask questions, instead of just allowing leaders to give speeches,” said a functionary.

The BJP is hoping to cash in on the benefits of central schemes such as Jan Dhan, free cooking gas and the ongoing project of providing piped water supply to households with women voters. In the last assembly election in 2015, women voter turnout stood at 60.48% while for the men the number was 53.32%. In the 2019 general election too, more women turned up to vote; as per the Election Commission’s data, 59.58 % women voted compared to 57.33% men.

Though the party is assertive that the ongoing opposition to the farm legislations has no resonance on the ground in Bihar; it is taking pre-emptive steps to woo them as the Opposition is sure to rake the issue.

“Farmers in Bihar are not complaining. The state has already abolished the APMC system in 2006, which is in line with what the new farm legislation also does—giving farmers the choice to sell outside mandis. Besides, for the benefit of the farmers, the Union government has created an Infrastructure Development Fund of Rs 1 lakh crore to provide technological support to the farmers,” said a functionary in Delhi.

However, a second functionary in the state said the feedback from the ground indicated that there had not been enough private investment as was promised during the abolition of the APMC system, which, coupled with the economic slowdown, accentuated by the global Covid-19 pandemic is expected to be “a cause for concern”.

As per data from the ministry of agriculture, about 5.638 million hectares of land is sown and the gross cultivated area is 7.946 million hectares. The total number of land holdings is 10.432 million, of which 8.646 million (82.9%) are marginal farmers, 1.006 million (9.6%) are small farmers and about 781,000 (7.5%) farmers hold land over 2 hectares in size.

Bihar is the third-largest producer of vegetables and fourth-largest producer of fruits and exports litchi, basmati rice and snow pea.

With an eye on the rural vote bank, the central government recently announced a spate of projects worth Rs 16,000 crore.