New Delhi: Alarm bells have begun ringing in the BJP with the farmers agitation spreading rapidly across the states. The farmers agitation which started in Madhya Pradesh has now spread across the BJP-ruled Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan.
The saffron top leaders are holding parleys with the Chief Ministers to assess the situation and to find a way out.
Shiv Kumar Sharma, the face of the ongoing farmers’ agitation in Madhya Pradesh and a former leader of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliated Bharatiya Kisan Sangh has gone on record threatening to “lie down in corpse pose” across India to highlight demands on June 21, the Yoga Day.
With trouble brewing in the BJP states, the high command is worried as the farmers had voted for the party overwhelmingly in the last few Assembly elections and in 2014 general elections.
While the BJP is fretting over the possible loss of its newly found vote bank, the Centre was looking at the options to implement the Swaminathan Commission report, a promise made in the 2014 BJP election manifesto.
A senior BJP leader, on condition of anonymity, claimed that “demontisation has had its impact on the agrarian sector.”
He pointed out that the “cash economy” has been severely hit after the demonetisation and it has severely affected the rural economy.
He went on to add that the “rural economy which comprises credit, procurement among others have been badly hit. A farmer needs cash for his daily survival and that’s not happening.”
The party which had been talking about “empowering poor” is now worried that if it “loses its grip on rural India, the going for the general elections could get somewhat tough.”
The BJP Chief Ministers have been asked by the party high command to approach the leading faces of the farmers agitation and address their grievances at the earliest.
In Haryana, a BJP-ruled state, the farmers who blocked the national highway on Friday have now threatened to march to Delhi in tractor trolleys if their demands for loan waiver and profitable prices were not met.
In Chhattisgarh the farmers showing solidarity with the agitating farmers in Madhya Pradesh demanded immediate implementation of the Swaminathan Commission. Farmers in Rajasthan have also joined the protests demanding loan waiver.
