Love for farmer or eye on polls?

By Ajay Jha | NT

New Delhi: The timing of Modi’s announcement on repealing the farm laws was aimed at appealing to the Sikh voters of Punjab and bolster prospects of his Bharatiya Janata Party in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, which are among the five states going to assembly election early next year. This followed his government’s nod to reopen the Kartarpur Corridor, a visafree journey for Indian pilgrims, to visit Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, 4.7 km inside Pakistan.

In his address, Modi reiterated that the farm laws were enacted with good intentions to benefit the farming community, especially the small farmers who constitute 80 per cent of the Indian farmers. “We could not convince a section of them (farmers) despite our best efforts,” the PM said while adding that he was not blaming anyone for this.

“There may have been some shortcomings in our efforts due to which we could not explain the truth to some of our farmer brothers,” Modi added.

The decision to repel the farm laws, which were suspended for two years soon after the agitations started, has opened the possibility for a tie-up with the former Punjab chief minister Capt. Amarinder Singh, who had quit the Congress party after he was removed from the post.

Amarinder Singh had four rounds of meetings with federal Home Minister Amit Shah before he launched his own political party. Singh had set the withdrawal of the agitation as a precondition for joining hands with the BJP, which was left high and dry after its old ally Shiromani Akali Dal had broken ties with it in protest against the farm laws.

Modi government’s announcement has taken the wind out of the rival Congress party’s sails. The Congress party which was openly supporting and coaxing the agitating farmers to meet its political ends has said that it would celebrate Kisan Vijay Diwas (farmers victory day) on Saturday, join the agitating farmers to share their jubilation and question why did the government take so long to repeal the “draconian laws”.