Farmers Movement Archive

For Bihar polls, BJP focuses on farmers, women

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) plans to woo farmers and women voters in Bihar by reaching out to them with a long-list of policy interventions that have been announced in the past six years of the NDA government at the Centre , and the over three-year rule of the BJP-JD(U) alliance in the state.The turn-out of women voters , at 60.48% and 59.58% in the 2015 assembly and 2019 Lok Sabha elections respectively, was more than that of men. Women are considered an important vote bank in Bihar; the party also wants to take no chances in pacifying farmers in the wake of the protests over the new farm laws. According to the state government’s data 70% of the population is engaged in agricultural operations. The turn-out of male voters in the two elections were 53.32% and 57.33%.According to BJP leaders familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity, the party plans to hold town halls targeted specifically at women and farmers in the run-up to the three-phase election starting October 28. These will be supplemented by more focused outreach efforts where the party will reach out to small groups of farmers -- keeping in mind the protocol for physical distancing during the campaign for the first major elections in the country behind held under the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic.The BJP is hoping to tap the female vote by emphasising the benefits of central schemes such as the Jan Dhan Yojana frills-free bank accounts; the Ujwala cooking gas cynlinder scheme; and the ongoing project for providing piped water supply to the households.Though the party claims that the ongoing agitation against farm laws has no resonance on the ground in Bihar, it is taking preemptive steps to woo the farmers as the opposition is sure to rake the issue.“Farmers in Bihar are not complaining. The state already abolished the APMC system in 2006, which is in line with what the new farm legislation, which also speaks about, giving farmers the choice to sell outside the mandis,” said a party functionary in Delhi.However, a second functionary in the state said the feedback from the ground indicates that there has not been enough private investment as was promised during the abolition of the APMC system, which coupled with the economic slowdown accentuated by the global pandemic is expected to be “a cause for concern”.Several critics of the farm laws have in fact held up Bihar’s poor acquisition of wheat under MSP -- according to the Food Corporation Of India data, only 0.05 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of wheat was procured from Bihar in 2020-21 against the revised target of 7 LMT -- as an indication of how the laws may actually hurt farmers. As per data from the ministry of agriculture, about 5.638 million hectares of land in the state is sown . The total number of land holdings in Bihar are 10.43 million out of which 8.65 million are held by marginal farmers; only 7.81lakh units are larger than 2 hectares.The state is the third largest producer of vegetables and fourth largest producer of fruits in the country and exports litchi, basmati rice and snow pea.With an eye on the rural vote bank the central government recently announced a spate of projects in the state worth Rs 16,000 crore.

Hindustan Times

05-10-2020

India