The Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) will on Wednesday hold a nationwide protest over its demand for guarantee of a “profitable price” for agricultural crops grown by small farmers. This protest by the BKS, an affiliate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), will take place at a time when the central government is already engaged in a standoff with farmers over the three contentious agricultural laws passed in September last year.
The RSS is the ideological mentor of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is in power at the Centre.
To register its protest, the BKS will stage sit-ins at 600 district headquarters. The outfit’s demand is that the Union government should come up with a formula to work out the profitable price of every crop, instead of focusing only on the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of certain crops. “There are 127 zones and each zone has different cost vis a vis labour and infrastructure wise. Then, one should chalk out a profitable price. This cannot be about only 6 per cent farmers; this should also be about the remaining 94 per cent farmers who are cultivating crops which do not attract MSP given by the government,” Mohini Mohan Mishra, the all-India secretary of the BKS, said earlier this week to news agency ANI.
“There are several crops and farmers who do not get profitable price. This should be addressed by the Centre,” Mishra further said.
{{/usCountry}}“There are several crops and farmers who do not get profitable price. This should be addressed by the Centre,” Mishra further said.
{{/usCountry}}However, the RSS affiliate has made clear its stance on farmers’ agitation which, it alleged, is “political.” Events such as these, Mishra said, are “politically motivated” and hence the BKS is not supporting that movement.