BJP Desperate To Woo Haryana’s Farmers

Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini has announced that his government will be procuring every crop on Minimum Support Price (MSP).

The announcement smacks of desperation in the face of the farmers threatening to derail the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) election wagon in the forthcoming Assembly polls in the state. These polls are scheduled to be held in around three months.

The BJP is on a back foot in Haryana, as it faces heavy anti-incumbency after being in power in the state for the last one decade. A formidable indicator of the way the wind is blowing can be gauged from the recently declared Lok Sabha election results.

Having made a clean sweep with an ally in 2014 and on its own in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the party lost half of the 10 parliament seats this time to the Congress. The latter is now threatening to oust the saffron party from power in the Assembly polls.

Saini’s bid to woo the peasantry that has already given a call to ‘Punish BJP’, was announced at the launch of the BJP’s poll campaign at a ‘Vijay Shankhnaad’ rally in Thanesar on Sunday. He also announced a waiver on the farmers’ outstanding charges on canal water usage for irrigation.

But the farmers don’t seem to b amused by the gesture and have put out a series of counters to what is being offered even as the BJP is playing up the announcement being supported by some farmer leaders who are currently outside the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) which is an umbrella organisation of farm bodies across the country. The Opposition has also dismissed this as another ‘jumla’ by the BJP.

After the rally, Saini said in a tweet, “Through the "Mhara Haryana Non Stop Haryana" rally from Dharmakshetra Kurukshetra to Thanesar Assembly @BJP4Haryana has sounded the victory bugle for the third time for the Assembly elections.

“The huge crowd that gathered in Kurukshetra and your support is a symbol of your trust in our policies. On this auspicious occasion, we have made many revolutionary announcements for the farmers of Haryana, the most important of which is that now the government will buy every crop of the farmers of Haryana at MSP.

“Irrespective of the crop the farmers grow, they will get the actual price of MSP. Congress's blatant lies and politics of misleading on MSP are now in front of the farmer brothers. Wherever there is a Congress government in the country, only those two crops are bought on MSP, whose money is given by the Central Government through FCI (Food Corporation of India).

“Our farmers of Haryana are not going to fall for the lies and misleading of Congress. Our track record of the last 10 years shows that the Haryana government, under the guidance of Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi ji, has taken historic farmer-friendly and welfare-oriented steps for every section of the society, which have no parallel in the country.”

https://x.com/NayabSainiBJP/status/1820046229499183599

But the farmers are pointing towards a host of issues related both to the procurement under MSP and others as well. To begin with they have questioned the very timing of the announcement underlining that the declaration comes at a time when there is hardly any crop to be brought to the mandis till the Assembly polls are to be held in the state.

They have also raised the issue of pending payments for the crop losses incurred by them on account of natural calamities claiming that these dues go back to as long as four years. They point out the protests at Hisar that have been going on for almost a year now.

The farmers further point out that it is the Centre that issues MSP and most of the procurement is done by the central agencies like the FCI, Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) and National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Limited (NAFED).

The farmers claim that the state government makes very little purchases in case of coarse grains, mustard etc and here too it makes a late entry and does not give MSP. In this context the farmers have their resentment and reservations on the Bhaavantar scheme wherein the payment to farmers is the gap between the market price and the MSP.

The farmers in the state are also agitated over the ‘trappings of multiple portals’ started by the state government through which they are denied what is rightfully theirs.

Sources on the ground said, “First the farmer has to upload information on the ‘Meri Fasal Mera Byoora’ (my crop, my disclosure) portal. Then if there is a natural calamity, he has to upload information on ‘Kshatipurti’ (compensation portal.

“In the process if he manages to salvage some of the produce and sell it in the market, then too he is on the receiving end from the administration. Why can’t the government streamline things and have just one portal so that the farmers can come out of the vicious circle?

“We are very clear that we want a legal guarantee for MSP on entire agricultural produce. As far as the announcements made by Saini go, the state government has no power to alter the policies that are designed and stipulated by the Centre.

“These are vague commitments. If they were so concerned about the plight of the peasantry, they could have passed a resolution in the state Assembly and forwarded it to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for giving a legal guarantee on the MSP for all the crops.

“In any case, if they were sincere they could have made announcements in the union budget that was presented barely 12 days back,” senior All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) leader Inderjit Singh told this reporter. The AIKS is a part of the SKM that has already given a call to ‘Punish BJP’ in the forthcoming Assembly polls in the state.

Singh further said, “The SKM Haryana will be meeting in Bhiwani on August 20 where the claims being made by the state government will be examined. How much losses the farmers incurred in natural calamities and how much compensation is being made to them will be taken up as a major issue.

“To take the farmers out of the large indebtedness and continuing farmers suicides the government needs to go by the Dr Swaminathan Commission of procurement of C2 (comprehensive cost of cultivation) plus 50%. Agriculture has to be made viable.”

The farmers say that the BJP at present is giving contradictory signals as it stands cornered just before the elections. There is no doubt that the farmers had played a major role in the BJP candidates losing five of the 10 seats in the recent Lok Sabha elections in the state.

They had given a call to defeat the BJP and the candidates of the saffron party and its erstwhile ally the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) had to face difficult questions on peasantry and its concerns when they went to campaign in the villages.

On the political front, Congress leader Kumari Selja who was recently elected from the Sirsa seat has accused the BJP of ‘misleading’ the farmers on the issue of the MSP. “Seeing that the Vidhan Sabha (election) is near, it is making baseless announcements to allay the farmers' resentment. Such announcements will achieve nothing. Farmers need a legal guarantee of MSP,” she said.

She added that the crop coming to the grain market should be bought at MSP. “The purchase should not be denied citing the quality of the crop as an excuse. In such circumstances, the debt-ridden farmer returns home after selling his crop at a throw-away price. Nothing can be more shameful than this. The government should learn to respect the farmer who provides food to the nation,” she said.

Selja said that Saini has tried to mislead the farmers by announcing MSP on 24 crops on Sunday. Instead of announcing, the government should have given a legal guarantee on MSP. She said that there is no guarantee that the government will not back out on the announcement in the days to come.

Selja claimed that the state had earlier claimed to give MSP on 14 crops, saying that it is the highest in the country. The central government already talks about giving MSP on 24 crops which means the state government was already not giving MSP on ten crops. This proves that the state government's intentions towards the farmers are not clear and they have no concrete policy, she claimed.

She also raised the issue of the state not buying the produce on MSP announced by the Centre. Referring to the procurement of cotton, Selja said that its purchase is refused citing some or the other defect in its fibre.

The farmer is compelled to run his household by selling the produce at a low price. “In such a situation, how can the BJP government call itself farmer friendly?” she asked.

Similarly, according to her the farmers are also cheated in mustard purchase where the government buys a fixed quantity of mustard only. In such a scenario a farmer is left high and dry if he has produced a good quantity of mustard.

On Sunday during a padyatra in Hisar, she had reiterated that when the Congress comes to power, the MSP for farmers' crops will be implemented through legislation.

In its response to the Union Budget presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman the SKM stated, “The Budget has neglected the long pending genuine demands of the farmers for MSP@C2+50% with guaranteed procurement.

“The finance minister said in the Budget speech ‘for Annadata, the Government had announced higher Minimum Support Price a month ago for all major crops, delivering on the promise of at least a 50 per cent margin over costs’ is untrue.

“The promise was @C2+50% and the current MSP is @A2+FL+50% (cost of production includes all paid-out expenses, both in cash and kind, along with the derived value of unpaid family labour). SKM demands the Finance Minister to clear this fact to the people through a White Paper on MSP thus uphold the transparency and propriety in governance.”

It sought a separate budget for agriculture and rural development with adequate share of the union budget and underlined, “Out of the 48.25 lakh crore estimate of the union budget 2024-25 only Rs. 1, 51, 851 crore or mere 3.15% is the share of agriculture and allied sector.

“The share of this sector has declined during the past Budgets as 5.44% in the year 2019-20, 5.08% in 2020-21, 4.26% in 2021-22 and 3.23% in 2022-23. The budget did not repeal GST (goods and services tax) on farm inputs including seed, fertiliser, machineries, spare parts and tractor thus helping the farmers to reduce the cost of production.

“This is the attitude of the Modi government towards this important sector that sustains 45.76 % of the work force and 58% of the population.”