A meeting in Budha village of Mandsaur district in Madhya Pradesh next month could turn out to be the first test of Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s promise that his party would be the lynchpin of opposition unity.
Prominent opposition leaders, including the Congress president and leading activists, are likely to assemble in Budha village, 20-kms from Mandsaur town on June 6, to mark the first anniversary of the death of six farmers in police firing last year.
On June 6, 2017, six farmers were killed in police firing in Mandsaur. The farmers were protesting against the abysmal prices for their onion and garlic crops. The incident had triggered sustained farm protests in several parts of the country.
As the Mandsaur firing incident completes a year, garlic prices have hit rock bottom in Madhya Pradesh, while onion rates have again plummeted in the Malwa-Nimar region, the epicentre of the farmers’ agitation.
The meeting is significant since Madhya Pradesh has assembly elections due in November-December, along with Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram. These will also be the last round of assembly elections before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Congress party’s Madhya Pradesh in-charge Dipak Babaria confirmed that Gandhi was likely to be in Mandsaur on June 6.
Swaraj Abhiyan’s Yogendra Yadav said leaders of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee, or AIKSCC, an umbrella body 190-farmer organisations, would also be in Budha village on June 6 to pay their respects to the slain farmers.