New Delhi, dhns: Political scramble was witnessed on Thursday to claim Chaudhary Charan Singh's legacy on his birth anniversary amid the spotlight on farmers in the election season with crucial agrarian states like Uttar Pradesh and Punjab going to polls in next three months.
Charan Singh's birth anniversary, which is observed as Kisan Divas (December 23), led to a fierce competition among different political parties to claim allegiance to his politics.
Akhilesh Yadav of Samajwadi Party, which has an alliance with RLD, demanded the highest civilian award of the country 'Bharat Ratna' for Charan Singh while Trinamool Congress' Mamata Banerjee, who is attempting to emerge as Opposition face against Modi, promised to stand by farmers and celebrate Kisan Divas as victory of farmers. Banerjee had become Chief Minister in 2007, latching on to Nandigram farm agitation.
Yogi Adiyanth government in the poll-bound UP celebrated with gusto the 'Kisan Divas' in the memory of the former Prime Minister, whose grand son Jayant Chaudhary aka Jayant Singh has formed an alliance with Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party and is threatening to turn the applecart of the BJP upside down in the Western UP, where the saffron party had won 109 of the 136 Assembly seats in the 2017 Assembly polls.
After withdrawing the three farm laws, BJP has gone into an overdrive to reach to the community, having organised multiple events repeatedly highlighting how the government has been "driven by the Prime Minister's vision for farmer welfare”. Modi inaugurated the Saryu canal national project on December 11 in Eastern UP.
Defence Minister and former UP CM Rajnath Singh, whom BJP has often fielded to counter the Opposition campaign against the government on farm issues, takes to social media to hail him as "top farmer leader" who throughout his life worked the weaker sections while Chief Minister Yogi Adityanth utilised the 'Kisan Divas" event organised in the memory of the former Prime Minister to target the alleged "anti-farmer approach" of the "earlier governments" led by non-BJP parties..
Battling a continuous campaign against his government and BJP at Centre from the Opposition parties on farm and farmer issues in the backdrop of the more than one year-long farmer agitation that was wound up this month after the government withdrew the three contentious farm laws, the UP Chief Minister chose to highlight how the BJP government worked for the welfare of farmers.
"After the BJP was voted to power in Uttar Pradesh, we waived off their loans to the tune of Rs 36,000 crore," the chief minister said. Rajnath Singh tweeted "farmers are not only cultivating crops but happiness for the country and Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government is committed to their welfare."
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