In an arena of intense farmer struggles mostly led by the CPI(M)-affiliated All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), the BJP’s attempts to raise the nationalism issue with references to the Balakot air strike have heated up the electoral battle. Rajasthan’s Shekhawati region, north of Jaipur, is witnessing a gradual shift in public opinion ahead of the May 6 Lok Sabha election.
While India’s reprisal action after the Pulwama terror attack has impressed the families of youth recruited in large numbers every year from Shekhawati’s villages to the Army and paramilitary forces, farmers are unhappy over incomplete waiver of loans by the Congress government in the State despite its promise. Farmers in the three Jat-dominated Lok Sabha constituencies have complained of banks rejecting their waiver claims.
The Shekhawati region largely comprises Sikar, Churu and Jhunjhunu districts and parts of Jaipur and Nagaur. A 13-day State Highway blockade over the loan waiver issue led by the AIKS in September 2017 had received widespread support and forced the then BJP government to write off part of the loans obtained by the farmers.
Renewed agitations
During the four months since the Congress came to power in December 2018, farmers’ unrest led to renewed agitations twice, as a 15-day Mahapadaav (stay) was held in front of the Sikar Collector’s office following a crash in onion prices and the alleged failure of the Market Intervention Scheme. Against this backdrop, the candidature of the CPI(M) nominees in Sikar and Churu has turned the fight triangular in Shekhawati.
The party has fielded its State secretary and four-time MLA, Amra Ram, from Sikar and sitting Bhadra MLA Balwan Singh Poonia from Churu. Mr. Ram, who is the AIKS vice-president, has been at the forefront of farmers’ agitation and has contested all the Lok Sabha elections since 1996, but has never won.
BJP leader and Sikar MP Sumedhanand Saraswati, who is contesting the polls again, is pitted against Subhash Maharia of the Congress. Mr. Maharia had earlier represented the Sikar constituency thrice in the Lok Sabha as a BJP nominee, and was a Union Minister of State from 1999 to 2004. He joined the Congress in 2016.
Crisis unresolved
CPI(M) district secretary Kishan Pareek told The Hindu that the BJP MP had done nothing for farmers in his five-year term; nor had the Congress come up with any vision for development of the region.
“Agrarian crisis remains unresolved and the people are struggling for water. Farm loan waiver is the major issue on which both the parties have deceived the electorate.”
As Mahendra Singh, an onion farmer visiting the Krishi Upaj Mandi, pointed out, the Congress had reaped benefit of people’s anger against the BJP in the 2018 Assembly election, but it did not fulfil its promise for loan waiver.
No-objection certificates were not issued to the intended beneficiaries and the Market Intervention Scheme was dropped on the pretext of model code of conduct.
Political analyst Ashfaq Kayamkhani said though Jats and Muslims in Shekhawati were considered traditional supporters of Congress, the issues raised by CPI(M) candidates may lead to a division in secular votes. The region’s farmers, who were an “unhappy lot”, had made their choice clear, while the BJP’s sustained emphasis on nationalism would make an impact on fence-sitters, he said.
