The Samyukt Kisan Morcha, a joint coalition of farmers’ unions, on Sunday welcomed the mandate against the BJP in the West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala Assembly elections. The Morcha leaders said the results proved that the people had rejected the divisive communal politics of the BJP.
In a press statement, they said the BJP tried to project its communal polarisation agenda as the main issue confronting voters when the country was facing severe crisis in terms of healthcare infrastructure crumbling due to lack of planning with lots of innocent citizens falling prey to the callous neglect of this government and at a time when the livelihood crisis of a large chunk of our population is starkly apparent.
Enlisting the assistance of the Election Commission in its political gamble of long drawn-out voting rounds and spending huge resources in campaigns did not ensure BJP a victory.
“The protesting farmers have already proven convincingly that the BJP’s communal polarisation agenda is unacceptable; this is a unified struggle of citizens to protect their livelihoods but also the secular fabric of the country. Our campaign with the voters asking them to punish the BJP stands vindicated. The BJP’s efforts not to make citizens’ livelihood issues — the anti-farmer laws and the anti-worker Labour Codes — as election issues have clearly failed. We congratulate the citizens of Bengal and other States for responding in our support. We now appeal to farmers from all over India to strengthen their resistance and join the movement in greater numbers,” said the SKM leaders in a joint statement.
The BJP should listen to the mandate of the people which includes the sentiment of farmers and should immediately repeal the agricultural laws and give legal guarantee to the MSP, it said.