Once ubiquitous but now outmoded, the good old post card has emerged as the chief protagonist in the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) crusade against the Narendra Modi-led BJP’s Land Acquisition Bill.
For the second phase of its national campaign against the allegedly anti-farmer ordinance, IYC volunteers are visiting farmers across 4,100 Assembly segments in the country, educating them about the Bill’s potential to infringe upon their land ownership rights and asking each individual to put his or her complaint in writing on a post card addressed to President Pranab Mukherjee.
“The idea is to bridge the gap between the farmers whose land is at stake and the head of the Indian State; we hope to illustrate to the Honourable President the pain being felt by each individual farmer in the latter’s own words and handwriting,” Amarinder Singh Raja Brar, national president of the IYC, told The Hindu.
Launched on April 5 and set to continue till April 15, Mr. Brar said the initiative aimed at generating at least 500 post cards from each Assembly segment and had set a consolidated target of 50 lakh such appeals which will be presented to President Pranab Mukherjee personally for further consideration.
The first phase of the IYC’s agitation against the Bill was launched with a gherao of the BJP office on January 5. Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and national vice-president Rahul Gandhi will address a massive farmer’s rally against the Bill at the Ramlila Maidan here on April 19.
Meanwhile, insiders said the initiative was also a first-of-its-kind cadre-building exercise.
“We not only want the farmers to be more involved in the fight for their own rights but need to make the party’s presence felt at the very tehsil and block-level which we more or less lost grasp of over the years,” said a party source.
The idea is to bridge the gap between the farmers whose land is at stake and the head of the Indian State
