Farmers Movement Archive

BJP plans to appoint coordinators as part of its village outreach drive

In a major community outreach in rural areas, the farmers’ wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party plans to appoint co-ordinators in every village to inform farmers about the various welfare schemes of the central government, a BJP leader said told HT.The development comes ahead of crucial assembly elections in the five states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.During a national executive meeting of BJP’s Kisan Morcha on Sunday, the first meeting after the contentious farm laws were repealed, party functionaries in states were told to hold meetings and organise seminars to tell farmers about the farmer-centric policies of the Narendra Modi government.“We will soon start appointing gram syanyojak (village coordinator) in every village across the country,” Manoj Yadav, national media in-charge of BJP farmers’ wing, said.“The central government has come out with several schemes such as soil health card, Pradhan Mantri Kisan Fasal Bima Yojana (crop insurance scheme), etc., for the welfare of farmers, and we want to reach out to farmers and tell them about them.”There will be a seminar by party workers every three months where they will take up one policy or scheme of the central government and explain them in detail, Yadav said.While BJP leaders say the farmers agitation will have little impact on the upcoming assembly elections as the laws have been repealed, they agree there is a need for an outreach campaign in rural belts, especially in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.In poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, the state unit’s farmers’ wing has planned a Kisan Sammelam (farmers’ conclave) in 75 districts till January 3. Kameshwar Singh, president of the state’s BJP farmers’ wing, said the party has been organising meetings and rallies since June.“There are around 56,000 villages in UP, and in the past few months, we have organised several programmes to reach out to the farmers. In the Kisan Sammelan, our focus is on telling farmers about the Centre and state government schemes for farmers,” Singh said. “It is also to listen to their concerns and how they have benefit from the various schemes.”Of the 403 assembly constituencies in India’s most populous state, 104 have a large percentage of sugarcane farmers, he said. Chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s decision to increase the minimum support price for sugarcane by ₹25 per quintal will benefit lakhs of farmers, Singh said. “This is one of the many farmer-centric measures taken by the UP government,” singh said. “Though our outreach initiatives, we are going to tell farmers about it,” said Singh.

Hindustan Times

27-12-2021

India