Will Farm Laws withdrawal help the BJP in UP and Punjab Assembly elections?

Lakshmana Venkat Kuchi *

Detractors may still abuse the central government on the farm laws, but the Modi government has shown it is flexible and practical enough by making a U-turn on the issue. Yes, a loss of face for the government it is, for after a year-long strong advocacy of the three farm laws asserting that they were in the farmers' interests, it caved into the pressure from the farmers of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana and withdrew the three bills in the Parliament.

The government also managed to extract a promise from the striking farmers to withdraw the stir after assuring them of a committee to work out MSP for all agricultural commodities.

Sitting on a protest since last winter, thousands of farmers from the three states and also from other areas plonked themselves on the Delhi borders, demanding a repeal of the laws that were first brought in an ordinance and later legislated into laws. These had also received the assent of the President.

With no let up in the protests and every effort to break them proving unsuccessful, the government was left with no choice - also because the farmers' stir was proving to be politically difficult for it - especially ahead of the general elections to agrarian Punjab and the big state of Uttar Pradesh. These two states are scheduled to go to polls early next year.

With the farmers remaining adamant on their stand, and the prospects of these farmers fanning out in these two elections going states and campaigning against the BJP plus the significant rural vote that decides rural seats, the BJP that runs the central government perhaps thought it wise to withdraw rather than stick to its stand.

But will the decision to withdraw the controversial farm bills, that were aimed at improving the lot of the farming community, help the BJP in the elections?

Well, if the anger on the ground on the borders of Delhi - the protest sites and in villages of UP, Punjab and Haryana - from the farming community is any indication, the BJP may not gain immensely. Only thing is that the decision can help it cut its losses, and once again attempt to woo the farming community that appears dead against it at present.

Well, the central government accepted almost all the demands of the farming community, and managed to convince the protest leaders to participate in a committee to look into the issue of MSP for farm produce.

This still remains a sore point with a section of the farming community still dead set on this demand, but most of the unions declared victory and appeared happy with the fact that they were returning home after one year of hardship in the searing heat and shivering cold of Delhi and its surroundings.

This withdrawal of farm laws is perhaps the first major climbdown by the Modi government, though it believed that the farm laws were just the reforms Indian agriculture was waiting for decades. These laws would have reorganized the agri sector in tune with market forces, which the farmers believe would lead to a steep hike in prices of the consumers would have to pay for the food produce.

The farmers were sure that the farm laws were designed to help the big industry that was keen on entering the agriculture sector and these fears were triggered by the manner in which the farm laws were brought in, in the first place, through the ordinance route.

State governments had complained, especially the ones ruled by the non-BJP forces, that they were not consulted on agriculture that was more of a state subject. Though the centre has a right to intervene, but only in the extreme of circumstances.

In the end, what matters is that the central government bowed to the people. For sure, Modi displayed pragmatism and flexibility. Detractors would harp on how the BJP found it difficult to break the agitation because those running the protests were monied class of socially dominant and financially powerful groups.

As they had adopted an anti-BJP stand. Clearly, political observers and more significantly the farmers, are convinced that it was a purely political decision in view of elections to Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. In UP, the BJP is still comfortably ahead with the combined popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Hindutva espousing Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, and with a fractured opposition giving it a reasonable confidence of making it again.

But, quietly on the ground, opposition spearheaded by Samajwadi Party is mounting a very real challenge. The SP's key electoral tie up with Rashtriya Lok Dal, an influential regional force that is popular among the Jat farmers in western UP. is making the contest a keener one than earlier thought of. Has the BJP managed to increase its political space in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh with the farm bill withdrawal is the question that the farmers will answer at the hustings.

Hanging in the air is a threat from a section of the farming community to restore their protests if the central government backtracked on any of its promises - of withdrawal of all the cases filed against the formers during the protests, paying compensation to the families of those who have lost their loved ones in the agitation and forming a committee on MSP.

Even as sweets were passed around after the announcement of withdrawal, few farmer leaders like Gurnam Singh Chadhuni warned that the agitation could be resumed if the centre "backtracked from its promises".