BJP reaches out to farmers in poll-bound West Bengal as farm stir completes 44 days

From 'Ek Mutthi Chawal Sangrah' (collecting a fistful of rice) in a door-to-door programme to 'Krishok Surokha' (farmer security) campaign on Saturday, the BJP has decided to augment its election campaign in West Bengal, which is a farmer-sensitive state, at a time when farmers have been agitating on the borders of Delhi for a month and a half.

BJP president J P Nadda will have lunch with a farmer's house at Jagadanandpur village in Bardhaman from where other events will also begin.

During the farmer outreach, BJP leaders will hold Gram Sabha meetings in more than 40,000 villages. Around 50,000 farmers will be given a 'Krishok Surokha card'. During the rice collection campaign, the BJP plans to reach out to 73 lakh homes in rural Bengal.

BJP's outreach aims to achieve for the party what it had in 2019 general elections through three rath yatras criss-cross nearly 11,000 km, covering all 294 Assembly constituencies in West Bengal for nearly a month months before Lok Sabha polls.

The region of Bardhaman is known as the rice bowl of West Bengal, a state where farmer issue is a sensitive one. BJP's lapping up the farm imagery is understandable in a state, where Mamata Banerjee had come to power in 2011, building a campaign around farm protest in Nandigram and Singur and defeating the Left Front ruling the state for last three decades.

In December last year, Home Minister Amit Shah had lunch at a farmer's residence in Belijuri village in Medinipur to hammer home the point of Modi government's sensitivity towards farmers.

After facing a massive backlash from farming community and rival political parties in 2015 over Modi government's bid to bring changes in UPA's land acquisition law of 2013 through an ordinance, which re-promulgated between December 2014 and May 2015, the government had to allow it to lapse by August end.

Announcing a slew of pro-farmer measures soon after, the government in August 2015 also renamed Agriculture Ministry as Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, stressed its commitment to doubling the farmers' income by 2022 and repeatedly invoked its commitment to "Annadata".

BJP is making a serious bid to power in the state, which appeared a distant dream to it till last year when it, surprising many, won 18 of 42 in 2019 Lok Sabha seats, a nine time from just two it had won in 2014. BJP's Lok Sabha tally in West Bengal was just four less than the ruling TMC, which had won 22 seats while Left whose over three decades long rule came to an end in the state 2011, scored a duck. Congress had won two.

West Bengal is an agrarian state and farmers' issue found instant support here. Mamata was the first chief ministers to declare unequivocal support to farmers. The failure of the talks with farmers in resolving disputes rang louder in West Bengal, with Opposition parties trying to show the BJP as anti-farmer.

On Friday, as the farmer agitation reached day 44 and the eighth round of talks between the government and the Opposition failed to break the logjam, the Opposition took swipes on the government. Rahul Gandhi raised questions on the "intention" of the government.

Parodying the famous "Tareekh Pe Tareekh" dialogue of Sunny Deol starrer Bollywood blockbuster Damini, Rahul Gandhi said giving dates after dates is the strategy of those whose intention are not very clear, while Priyanka Gandhi Vadra attacked the government saying "the minister who was supposed to hold talks reached late in the meeting and kept on talking about not withdrawing the bill even as lives of more than 60 people have been lost during this agitation as farmers faced batons, tear gas and lathi charge."