BJP latches on to tractor burning by Congress to justify farm laws

As Opposition parties have kept up the farm protest momentum on, BJP top leadership has latched on to the tractor burning incident at India Gate on Friday to turn the table on them, seeking to project protests as political in nature and questioning how can farmers burn the farm tools that they venerate.

On Tuesday Prime Minister Narendra Modi slammed the Congress without naming it saying, “they are insulting the farmers by torching the machines and equipment that are worshipped by them.”

Ever since a group of Youth Congress workers set a tractor ablaze near India Gate on Monday morning while protesting against the farm laws, the Congress and the BJP have engaged in a battle of hyperboles on the issue.

BJP's Kisan Morcha national president Rajkumar Chahar on Tuesday took part in a 'tractor rally' in Chandigarh in support of farm laws and slammed the tractor-burning incident in Delhi by Punjab Youth Congress worker as “insult” to farmers.

A day after the group of nearly two dozen youths carried a tractor on truck to Rajpath and set it on fire after uploading it, Delhi Police on Tuesday detained Punjab Youth Congress (PYC) president Brinder Dhillon.

This is not the first time the BJP has sought to turn a campaign of Congress upside down. Modi is adept at turning similar incidents or remarks like he had done with Rahul Gandhi’s Chowkidar Chor Hai barb, countering it with BJP’s "Main Bhi Chowkidar" campaign and projecting the Congress leader’s remarks as an insult to millions of security guards in the country.

The BJP and Modi in particular had also turned the seemingly innocuous "Hua To Hua" remarks made by Sam Pitroda in response to a question about 1984 anti-Sikh riots into a major campaign during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Congress, whose Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri had given the ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’ slogan during 1965 war with Pakistan, has sought to revive the sentiment during the farm protest arguing “our country thrives on the blood and sweat of our farmers. From fighting the British to feeding the entire nation, our farmers are the nation's backbone."

Countering the campaign immediately, BJP pressed a number of its senior leaders, who called the Congress move to burn the tractor a “drama”

Modi, whose party has repeatedly accuse the Congress of ignoring non Nehru-Gandhi leaders like Shastri and Sardar Patel, also said none of the leaders of the political party (Congress) had till date visited the Statue of Unity, built to honour the memory of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel whose contribution to unifying the country is well known. "Why? Because they had to oppose," he said.

"Taking a jibe at the incident, former Delhi BJP chief MP Manoj Tiwari said the Congress torched a tractor which is a source of prosperity for farmers and that the Opposition party is "expert in burning things".