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Will Rahul’s push for farmers help Congress in Assembly elections?
NEW DELHI: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s farmer outreach programme in poll-bound states is aimed at striking a chord with the community that is disillusioned
NEW DELHI: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s farmer outreach programme in poll-bound states is aimed at striking a chord with the community that is disillusioned with the political class for its “failure” to address the problems of the agriculture sector.
Gandhi’s 26-day kisan yatra in Uttar Pradesh and now his proposed 10-day farmers’ outreach in Punjab primarily focuses on three major demands — loan waiver, increased minimum support price (MSP) and reduction in their power bills by 50%.
“Rahul Gandhi’s effort to take up the agrarian distress issue is very daring, futuristic and covers a domain which has been completely ignored by other political parties,” said Devinder Sharma, a food and trade policy analyst.
Political analysts suggest that the farmers’ issue may not have immediate resonance in Uttar Pradesh elections but could alter the poll outcome in Punjab where the community is a deciding factor. Farmers, who constitute an estimated 50% of the total population in Punjab, play a key role in any poll outcome in the state.
Like Bihar, the Uttar Pradesh politics is dominated by caste and religious factors though these had negligible impact on the 2014 Lok Sabha election results from the state where the BJP won 71 of the total 80 seats.
“Rahul Gandhi has taken up the right issue as the farmers’ plight could not have been ignored for long. It may also help in the Congress resurgence to some extent especially in UP and Punjab,” said Prof Balveer Arora, a political analyst.
The BJP-led NDA government has faced flak for its handling of the agrarian crisis with the Congress alleging that PM Narendra Modi “failed” to keep his poll promise to beleaguered farmers.
Gandhi has repeatedly accused the PM of siding with the corporate sector and ignoring the farmers. The Congress also cites the National Crime Record Bureau figures to corner the Modi government over farmers’ suicides.
The number of suicides by farmers and farm labourers increased to 12,360 in 2014 from 11,772 in 2013. Of these, 5,650 were farmers and 6,710 agriculture labourers.
