For the last one week, the national discourse has been hovering around farmers and their plight. The unexpected turn in national discourse, hitherto centred around patriotism and cow protection, caught the Narendra Modi government unawares.
The reason for this shift was the death of 6 farmers in a police firing in Mandsaur district of Madhya Pradesh who were demanding loan waivers and proper prices
for their produces.
While the agitation has shattered the pro-farmers image of MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, it has unsavoury fallout for the Narendra Modi government too. The Modi government was in the midst of celebrations of its three years’ rule at the centre. The BJP’s plans to go to the town with achievements of its government, which was initiated by none other than the Prime Minister himself in Assam on May 26, suddenly disappeared from media limelight. It is a major blow for the Modi government and the BJP.
BJP had planned 15-day long Modi Fest all over the country to highlight the ‘good governance’ of the Modi regime. Although there have been a phenomenal decline in employment generation and GDP taking a major dip, the path ahead for BJP looked very smooth since a demoralized opposition was not in a position to pose any challenge to the persona of the Prime Minister.

Everything was going as per the script, but the farmers’ violent movement in MP changed the whole political scenario. The opposition got a major boost to corner the Modi as well as Chauhan governments. Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi visited the trouble-torn areas of MP and labeled the Modi government as anti-farmers and pro-corporate. He said, “The Government can waive off crores of crores of industrialists, but cannot give loan waivers to farmers. It can give them bullets only.”

Astute BJP spokespersons termed the Rahul Gandhi’s visit to MP as photo-ops.However, the party cannot laugh the assertions of Rahul Gandhi away. Only a few days back, loans taken by Reliance Communications, a beleaguered company of Anil Ambani, were restructured. With farmers’ agitation looming large on the horizon, this raised the questions whether the Modi government was practicing a pick and choose policy and going soft on loans taken by corporate houses.

However, what is a bigger reason for the Modi government to worry about is the shift in the media attention from Modi’s ‘good governance’ to its failures since farmers’ agitation became violent. Till now media seemed to be mesmerized by the persona of the Prime Minister, but now it is asking questions about his promise of bringing achche din for people. Questions are being asked about his promise of giving 50 per cent plus input cost to farmers as minimum support price for their crops. During the poll campaigns, Modi had promised to implement the Swaminath Commission recommendations on agriculture to mitigate the plight of farmers.However, even after three years in the government, no visible steps have been taken in this regard.

What is more ironical is that the Modi government still looks to be in the pre-poll mode: In his public addresses, the Prime Minister promises to double the income of farmers by 2022, but he never gives any indication as to how he plans to do this.There is no denying that government has taken some good steps such as extension of crop insurance, soil health card and neem coating initiative. But it is not enough for a country where thousands of farmers commit suicides every year due to miserable financial conditions.

In fact, BJP’s promises during the 2014 poll campaigns have now become Achilles heel for the Modi government. When you are in the opposition, it is the easy to promise moon, but if come to power, it is really tough to fulfill those promises. BJP is now learning this the hard way.

Another problem for BJP is its cherry pick policy. Take the example of Uttar Pradesh: During the election campaigns for Uttar Pradesh Assembly, the Prime Minister had himself announced that if they were voted to power, they would waive off farmers’ loan in the first cabinet meeting of the state government. The UP government led by Yogi Aadityanath fulfilled the promise but it became a
trouble for other states ruled by BJP.

One thing that the BJP failed to understand that when you are in power both at the centre and states, an action taken in one BJP ruled state becomes precedent for other states. After loan waiver in UP, obvious questions were raised: why no such steps are being taken in Maharashtra or for that matter in Madhya Pradesh? After all, the conditions of farmers in these states are in no way better than UP ! However, the fact remains that agriculture sector is in dire need for comprehensive and long term policy measures. But in the current scenario, loan waivers could be a temporary relief. Signs are that Shivraj Singh Chauhan has to bite the bullets sooner than later since his Maharashtra counterpart has already conceded the farmers’ demand.

                                                                                                        (The author is senior journalist and Executive Editor, Live India)