As farmer protests rise, Opposition eyes joint approach

As the ire of farmers against the Centre has started spreading to other States from Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, the Opposition parties are making all-out efforts to coordinate the protests so that it could be turned against the BJP in the coming years.

Ahead of the Monsoon Session of Parliament, scheduled in July, the Opposition parties will meet to take united action on such issues.

A recent meeting of all political parties on Presidential elections had also resolved to jointly prepare plans of agitations against the Centre. The Congress, the principal Opposition party, said it is in touch with the other parties. “We will protest for the farmers in and outside Parliament,” Congress general secretary CP Joshi told reporters on Monday.

The demand of 62 farmers’ organisations — that Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan should resign, taking moral responsibility for the Mandsaur killings — is also helping the Opposition.

The protests organised by these farmer outfits on June 16 may intensify the attack against the Centre and the BJP.

The Opposition camp believes that the BJP will be ready for any compromise with the farmers, as States such as Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat helped the party to secure a majority in the Lok Sabha in 2014.

The Opposition feels that if the farmer agitations continue at this pace, the BJP’s popularity will take a hit. Madhya Pradesh is going for elections next year.

The Congress is also trying to keep the issue hot so that it can consolidate its lost base by 2019. After party vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s visit to the State, senior Congress leaders Jyotiraditya Scindia and Kantilal Bhuria were prevented from entering Mandsaur. Scindia had announced a three-day fast condemning the police action.

“Why is the police preventing me from going to Mandsaur? This is Hitlershahi,” Scindia said on Tuesday.

The Left parties are seeing the opportunity as a step to build a “counter narrative” against the Narendra Modi-led government.

“The alternative narrative agenda to Modi and the RSS is happening in a most effective manner in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra in the form of farmers’ agitations,” said CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury in Thrissur on Monday.

“It is growing in other parts of the country. The Maharashtra government had to reluctantly accept the farm loan waiver. Now the protests have moved towards Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. The farmers are agitated because of the policies of the Centre and because of the exploitations.”

Though farmer organisations maintain that they do not need the help of political parties, their demands do have political colour.

The Left-leaning All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) attacked Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for his reported stand that the Centre cannot fund a loan waiver. Farmers are not begging for any favour but demanding their rights, it said.

“The Centre has the responsibility to ensure the MS Swaminathan Commission’s recommendation of MSP at 50 per cent above the cost of production for all crops. In the last three years’ rule of the BJP, the Finance Minister miserably failed to do so. The farmers are in debt due to the wrong policies of the government,” AIKS leader Hannan Mollah said on Tuesday.

Mollah, along with an AIKS delegation, visited the kin of the farmers who were killed in Mandsaur in police firing recently.