Farmers Movement Archive

Farmers’ agitation can have huge impact in UP elections: Yashwant Sinha

Ghaziabad: Trinamool Congress (TMC) vice-president Yashwant Sinha extended his support to the farmers’ agitation on Tuesday and said that the protest will have a huge impact in the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh scheduled for next year and predicted that the results will be similar to West Bengal. Sinha, a former Union minister, on Tuesday arrived at UP Gate and met farmers’ leaders, including Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) national spokesperson Rakesh Tikait. Sinha had left the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2018 and joined Mamata Banerjee’s TMC ahead of the this year’s assembly elections in West Bengal where his party returned to power with over 200 seats and the BJP winning less than 100. “As far as I know, the farmers’ leaders from the agitation went to West Bengal and they asked people to vote for anyone but the BJP. So, if they their role is same role in UP elections, it will have huge impact over the people as their agitation is standing strong. The government is helping corporate, and those I am indicating to, their net worth has increased despite Covid situation,” Sinha said at UP-Gate. “In our economy, the terms of trade are not in favour of farmers. So, the government should supplement the income of farmers. Its calculation should be taken up by some expert group either regularly or on annual basis. When I was with the same party when its government came to power in 2014, I wrote (to the government) on this. But they had no interest in it.” The farmers have camped at different borders of Delhi since November 26 last year and demanding repeal of three new farm laws and also for a new law on minimum support price (MSP). Since the decline in second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, the farmers have regrouped and renewing their agitations at different borders of Delhi. “We will give ‘dose’ in upcoming elections, and we will go to Uttarakhand and UP as well. It is now easy for us since we have different ‘morchas’ (agitation points) set up at different borders. We will go from here and return back,” Tikait said. The UP BJP spokesperson could not be reached for comments. “People have seen how different opposition parties contested together in UP and lost ground. In West Bengal, the BJP secured more vote percentage than before and secured more seats than before. We also saw how other parties did not give a contested in West Bengal and this benefitted the TMC. So, the situation in UP are different and the BJP led government by chief minister Yogi Adityanath will come more strongly than before in 2022,” said Sunil Sharma, the BJP MLA from Sahibabad.

Hindustan Times

29-06-2021

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