Swaraj India president Yogendra Yadav has said that farmers issues and agrarian crisis have entered centre stage of Indian politics for the first time in more than 30 years and is likely to be the dominant factor during the 2019 parliamentary elections.
“We had parliamentary elections fought on Emergency, Bofors, Mandal, Mandir, 2G and so on, but there is every possibility that the 2019 elections would be fought on farmers’ issue,” he said.
Addressing mediapersons here on Sunday, Mr. Yadav said the whole country was listening to farmers grievances when recently more than 200 farmers’ groups came together under a single platform — All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee — to fight for their rights.
“We saw both the landless and land owning farmers coming together on one platform as also the green and the red flag — representing different ideological strands in the agricultural sector — uniting for a common cause, which has forced political parties to take note of it,” he said.
In a significant departure from the past, farmers not only aired their grievances but have presented solutions and drafted Bills seeking a mechanism for assured remunerative price for their crops and freedom from indebtedness, said Mr. Yadav.
The net result of the farmers movement was that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who did not speak a single word on farmers, is now daily chanting about ‘kisan’ while the other political parties too were competing to demonstrate who was more vocal about farmers’ issues, he said.
Agrarian crisis apart, there was rampant unemployment and disenchantment among the youth which was another major issue but the Centre was engaged in distracting people by raising issues such as Hindutva and Ayodhya, said the Swaraj India president.
Elaborating on the unemployment issue, Mr. Yadav said around 35 lakh jobs were lost during the last four years as per a survey by MSME and while there was “jobless growth” during the UPA regime, it was “job loss growth” under the present regime. Describing the 2019 polls as critical for the future of the country, Mr. Yadav said what was at stake was the future of the republic and to make rural India and agriculture central to its development. However, there were attempts to diffuse the situation by the governments by announcing loan waivers, said Mr. Yadav, pointing out that farmers did not want loan waiver but freedom from indebtedness.