Exactly a year ago, five farmers were killed in police firing in Pipliyamandi, which is in the Mandsaur district of Madhya Pradesh. Henceforth; the Congress chose the same place and date to kickstart its election campaign for the upcoming state elections and to turn the existing farm distress against the ruling BJP government.
Rahul Gandhi promised to waive all farm loans within 10 days of forming the government. He also shared his dream of industrial development in Mandsaur, seeing "Made in Mandsaur" stamp on the phones in 5-7 years.
BJP only supports big businessmen and not farmers. It can waive 2.5 trillion of 15 industrialists, but nothing for farmers. The Narendra Modi government has failed in providing two crore jobs to the youth. And, asked the farmers if a single penny has been credited as yet into their accounts against the promise of Rs 15 lakh made during the 2014 election campaign.
Mandsaur appears calm, though the farm distress is real. People in the urban areas appear a bit wary of the district turning into a political battlefield. The Congress' rally was well attended but people do realize that Congress wants to use the farm distress issue to form a government after staying out of power for three consecutive times.
Mandsaur is a significant site for poppy cultivation from which opium is extracted. Thus, under-reporting the poppy production and supplying it to smugglers is indeed a lucrative offer. An investigative report by India Today says that smugglers offer Rs 7000 a Kg for poppy. There have been numerous incidents of gang wars for procuring opium license in the region.
The three prominent Congress leaders from the state are Jyotiraditya Scindia; a Lok Sabha MP, Kamal Nath; the state unit chief, and Digvijaya Singh; former CM. Rahul Gandhi avoided mentioning Digvijay Singh in his speech because BJP otherwise would have got a chance to retaliate Congress by citing a similar issue of the Multai police firing, which killed 17 farmers when Digvijaya Singh was the chief minister.