BJP plans drive against ‘misinformation’ on laws

Troubled by the massive protest by farmers at Delhi’s borders, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government is planning a communication outreach, covering all districts of the country, to counter what it termed a “misinformation campaign about the three recently passed farm laws”.

As part of the campaign, the party has planned scores of chaupals (rural town hall meetings), press conferences and interactions to convey the message that the “contentious legislations” are, in actuality, quite beneficial to farmers and would significantly raise their incomes.

BJP national general secretary Arun Singh told HT that most farmers supported his party though some have been misinformed by political rivals.

“Our aim is to show that the Prime Minister wants to increase their incomes -- to double them. He is their Messiah. Farmers are with us but some have been wrongly informed, so we want to fix that,” he said.

The senior BJP leader said his party will tell the people how the opposition parties were lying.

“We will tell them about the Fasal Bima Yojana and all other schemes for farmers. In this effort, all MPs, all ministers and chief ministers will be involved. We will travel, spread the word and communicate,” Singh said.

Singh said the BJP had done similar outreach programmers earlier as well, when it had brought in ordinances on the same subject. “We will do 100 sammelans (meetings) in every state, like kisan chaupals (farmer gatherings). We will start from Saturday and every district will see a press conference...,” Singh said.

The head of BJP’s Kisan Morcha Rajkumar Chahar said there would be kisan sammelans across the country which will be held keeping in mind the restrictions in place in view of Covid-19.

“The farmers are innocent. But some have done propaganda on the bills to mislead them. Our aim is to counter the propaganda…This is a big conspiracy against Modi ji’s popularity. The forces which are worried at his rise had earlier tried to hold protests on the revocation of Article 370 and the amended citizenship laws. Those did not succeed and they are now trying to mislead farmers,” he said.