BJP checkmates Congress with its villager-poor-farmer pitch

As the Opposition seeks to put the blame on Centre for “messy management of migrant crisis,” the ruling dispensation has gone all out to take home its ‘gaon, gareeb, kisan’ message, by launching direct people contact programmes and narrating how the Opposition-ruled governments blocked the migrants from going back to their homes.

With the economy in doldrums and middle classes voicing disappointment, the government is wooing villagers, poor people and farmers. From the emotive slogan of ‘igniting the spirit of Jai Kisan’ to projecting caring for the poor as the focus of Government, the Centre has reached out to the rural masses in a big way in the last few days.

After Modi penned a letter to people, the BJP has planned to reach 10 crore homes in June telling people how the government created a buffer for the poor and the labourers during COVID-19 crisis and provided food to nearly 80 crore people. During the first cabinet meeting after completion of the first year of Modi 2.0, the government claimed that it was for the first time in India’s history that street vendors from peri-urban and rural areas have become beneficiaries of an urban livelihood programme. These steps are said to be the latest in a series of measures the government will take up.

The government said they will lay the foundation for ensuring “golden harvests for our hard-working farmers”, who will now get the freedom to produce, hold, move, distribute and supply after being empowered to engage with processors, aggregators, wholesalers, large retailers, exporters.

Clearly, the Opposition has realised the potential of the campaign built around ‘messy management of migrant issues’ and electoral gains accruing from it in upcoming elections. The BJP is aware of the dent this can make in its carefully cultivated base among OBC, Dalits and the poor.

Projecting the humble ‘chaiwalah’ origin of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who belongs to the EBC community, the BJP has breached the support base of many parties in the last few years, particularly in the Hindi belt. The poor backed the PM when he took the demonetisation decision in 2016. The BJP had a record victory in Uttar Pradesh assembly polls in 2017, decimating the alliance of SP-Congress, with huge chunks of OBC and Dalit youths voting for him.

It is this voter base which is at stake now, having returned from Surat and other industrial township of Gujarat, Mumbai or Delhi. Agriculture is a field where a large number of these youths can be re-employed. The government wants to harness the opportunity.