NEW DELHI: BJP on Saturday appeared to be drawing confidence from what it considered "poor response" to farmer unions' call for chakka jam and is likely to step up the persuasion campaign to win over the agriculturalists.
"The chakka jam was a complete no-show except in pockets of Punjab and Haryana, which was only expected. Obviously there were some photo-ops by professional agitators, but farmers ignored the call for paralysing traffic across the country. We feel encouraged to redouble effort to isolate the farmers from the professional agitators," said a senior BJP member who preferred anonymity.
BJP functionaries also emphasised what they termed as popular indifference to the efforts to engineer disruptions. "At how many places, farmers have protested in UP, Bihar, West Bengal, Maharashtra, the most populous states of the country," asked a party member.
Sources felt that many protesters on the borders of Delhi are also annoyed with the opposition taking over their agitation, though they are reluctant to say so openly because of the fear of the leaders of unions.
Though BKU's Rakesh Tikait wrong-footed them by calling for escalation of protests after having negotiated his "arrest" with UP government, BJP has since intensified back channel efforts to resolve the issue. They have emphasised that the government is ready to offer concessions without altering the "soul" of the three laws. They have been aggressive in highlighting the "doublespeak" of the opposition parties which had on several occasions in the past advocated legislations similar to the three enacted last year.
Citing a 2010 tweet of Congress member Shashi Tharoor supporting private players' role in grain storage, Union minister Prakash Javadekar on Saturday reiterated the party's allegation that most of the opposition parties have supported the same legislations and their current opposition is politically motivated. "Another exposition of Congress' hypocrisy on #FarmLaws. Here is a tweet by @ShashiTharoor in 2010... And now #Congress thinks exactly the opposite," he tweeted.
On January 23, 2010, Tharoor had tweeted, "It seems we waste more wheat every year to storage and distribution losses than Australia grows! Real need for the private sector to move into grain storage." BJP-supporting social media handles have also shared several videos of Congress members like former PM Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, when they strongly pitched for removal of the "arhtiyas" (middlemen) in purchase of grains from the farmers.
Taking a dig at Tharoor's tweet, BJP spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Sudhanshu Trivedi shared initial lines of famous Hindi song, "Iss rang badalati duniya mein, insaan ki niyat theek nahi, jhaanko to zara gireban mein, Imaan ki niyat theek nahi."
Agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar had on Friday strongly defended the three farm laws in Rajya Sabha, daring the opposition to find flaws in the statutes. As part of the efforts to reach out to farmers, the party's Uttar Pradesh unit, including Union minister Sanjeev Balyan and UP minister Suresh Rana, have reached out to fellow Jats in Western UP, who are the mainstay of Tikait's BKU.
"We are also in touch with khaps, some of which are said to have extended support to the agitation," a member said, adding that barring fear of law and order issues, there is no large scale perceptible sentiment against the laws.