Lok Sabha elections 2024: Does farmers’ protest lack potential to rattle Centre this time?

At the heart of the 2020-21 farmers protest was the three farm laws — The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act; The Farmers’ (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act; and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act.

Marked by controversies, the demonstration at the Delhi borders went on for 14 months, culminating in the Central government’s decision to revoke the farm laws — timely, just ahead of Assembly elections in two states, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi even apologised to the nation saying: “I want to say with a sincere and pure heart that maybe something was lacking… that we could not explain the truth to some of our farmer brothers… we have decided to repeal the three farm laws.” Also Read | Farmers protest traffic advisory: Vehicle jam on highways connecting Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad. Here’s roads to avoid

Why Centre looks unfazed by the farmers protest?

But this time, the NDA-led government, seeking for a third term at the Centre ahead of the Lok Sabha elections 2024, looks unfazed by the ongoing farmers protests even though the scenes at the Delhi borders persist. The leaders have in fact blamed the farmers for refusing talks with the government.

Also Read | Farmers’ Delhi Chalo protest: I don’t think China border is fortified the way Delhi is, says Shashi Tharoor

Haryana Home Minister Anil Vij said, “The report on MSP came in 2004 when Congress was in power. Why didn’t they do anything in 10 years?… The farmers want to go to Delhi and have a conversation with representatives of the Govt but when they came to Chandigarh, the farmer leaders refused to talk to them.”

“I am surprised that the Punjab Govt has released a notice asking us not to send drones to our border…. When farmers started moving from Amritsar, they did not even try to stop them. This clearly means that they want the farmers to create terror in Delhi. Stone pelting is going on and one of our DSP & 25 other police officers are injured in this,” he said.

Union Minister Anurag Thakur urged the protesting farmers to rejoin talks with the government on their demands and asserted that violence and vandalism were not the answer to their problems.

Union Agriculture Minister Arjun Munda, who is also negotiating with farmer leaders, said that the government is completely ready to find a solution through dialogue, but the farmer’s organisations, instead of solving the problems, are only adding to them.

“The way things are being said by (farmer) organisations and how instead of solving the problems, they are trying to add to those problems, is creating difficulties for the people,” he said.

Will farmers’ protest 2.0 have similar impact?

While the Centre looks unbothered by the farmers’ protest 2.0, Indian Express has quoted a BJP leader as saying that the party does not see this farmers agitation having a similar impact ahead of the Lok Sabha elections 2024, unlike the 2020-21 protests when the saffron party was seeking a re-election in the Uttar Pradesh elections.

In October 2021, a SUV, belonging to MoS Ajay Mishra Teni’s son Ashish Mishra, rammed into some protesting farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri, killing four. In the 2022 Assembly elections, the BJP won all eight seats in the district.

“The Bharat Ratna for Chaudhary Charan Singh, the Jat patriarch, will also defuse anger among Jat farmers, if any. The party does not see a big potential in the current agitation to have a similar impact,” the BJP leader said.

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Published: 14 Feb 2024, 08:05 PM IST