Shivraj Singh Chouhan faces his biggest challenge ever

While the Madhya Pradesh chief minister engineered a fantastic agricultural turnaround in his state, why he couldn't dismantle the agri-traders' lobby remains a mystery

Aditi Phadnis 

Aditi Phadnis For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost, goes the saying. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan might lose his kingdom — 6.4 million farmers, to be specific — to keep around 350 agricultural traders happy. Everybody knows what happened in June-July this year. Farmers grew a huge onion crop. Prices plummeted.

The Madhya Pradesh government intervened and bought around 900,000 tonnes of onions at Rs 8 per kg from farmers. But farmers were still not happy and their protest took a violent turn. The police opened fire at the protesters. Five people were killed. ...

First Published: Fri, November 17 2017. 21:59 IST