BJP wins back the agrarian belt

Despite the Congress government’s attempts to woo farmers by announcing a Rs 8,165 crore relief which would help 22 lakh farmers, a majority of the constituencies hit by the agrarian crisis have voted in favour of the BJP.

In 2013, of the 74 seats impacted by the agrarian crisis, the Congress won comfortably with 40 seats.



In 2018, a splash of orange in the same areas indicates that farmers weren’t quite impressed by Siddaramaiah's efforts. The BJP leads in the same areas with 35 seats, a huge jump from the 11 seats it won in 2013. The Congress, on the other hand, is down to 22 seats while the JD (S) with 16 seats has gained 2 seats in 2018.



Between April 2013 and November 2017, as many as 3,515 farmers in the state committed suicide. Of these, the Karnataka agricultural department accepted that 2,525 deaths were due to drought and crop failure. But droughts are not new to Karnataka. In the 15 years from 2001 to 2015, only three years–2005, 2007 and 2010–the state witnessed no drought, according to a report by the Karnataka State Disaster Management Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC).


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Three factors may have favoured the BJP. One, merging with BS Yeddyurappa’s KJP, which had earlier split its vote in 2013. Two, the BJP’s promise of a loan waiver of Rs 1 lakh from nationalised and cooperative banks and an allocation of Rs 1.5 lakh crore for irrigation projects. Three, it’s in keeping with Karnataka’s anti-incumbency trend, where no party returns to power for a consecutive term.

Clearly, Siddaramaiah's bid to help 22 lakh farmers with a crop loan waiver of up to Rs 50,000 per farmer failed.