by Peerzada Arshad Hamid
NEW DELHI, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- Head of the Election Commission of India (ECI) Sushil Chandra said last week that all political parties were in favor of holding the local elections in the country's northern state of Uttar Pradesh on time while ensuring COVID-19 protocol.
Chandra made the announcement at a press conference in Lucknow, the capital city of Uttar Pradesh, India's largest populated state.
The elections in Uttar Pradesh are likely to be held from February to March and the dates for the voting are to be announced soon.
The incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government headed by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is seeking re-election, while the opposition parties including the Congress party and other key regional players are trying to unseat it.
At the heart of the campaign will be farmers and their year-long protest that brought the BJP government into submission and forced it to revoke the contentious farm laws that would revolutionize the Indian agriculture sector.
REVOCATION OF CONTROVERSIAL FARM LAWS
On the first day of the recently held winter session, the Indian parliament passed the Farm Laws Repeal Bill without any discussion. Prior to this on Nov. 19, almost after a year of strong protests from the farmers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a televised address to the nation, announced that the government would repeal the controversial laws as they could not convince a section of farmers on the merits of the new farm laws.
The announcement came ahead of crucial local elections in several states including Uttar Pradesh, the BJP's forte.
Though the announcement has sent back the agitating farmers to their homes after a year-long protest, it remains to be seen if it can help the BJP win the election in Uttar Pradesh.
In the last local elections held in 2017, the BJP bagged 312 seats in the 403-strong legislative assembly of Uttar Pradesh.
During the Indian general elections in 2019, the BJP won 62 of the 80 parliamentary (Lok Sabha) seats in the state.
Opposition parties say the Modi government revoked the farm laws for electoral reasons.
"The government bowed down only because their defeat was clearly visible in Uttarakhand, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. After the elections in five states, they will bring back this law from the back door," Congress party chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala told a press conference while reacting to the remarks made by federal Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar.
Tomar had said "we (government) moved a step back and we will move forward again." However, he later clarified that there was no proposal of the government to bring back the agriculture reform laws.
Local elections are due this year in five states including Uttar Pradesh.
CHALLENGES FOR BJP IN UTTAR PRADESH
Reports said a few months before the upcoming local elections that the BJP's fortunes appeared bleak in the Western part of the state, an area engulfed by the farmers' agitation. BJP leaders were facing the wrath of people in villages, with many even putting up signs stopping their entry.
The depiction of the anger can be seen from the critical and angry statements from Meghalaya Governor Satya Pal Malik, who has consistently and vociferously opposed the farm laws.
"When I recently went to meet the prime minister over the farmers' issues, I picked up a fight within five minutes... I told him 500 people have died... He asked 'Have they died for me'?" Malik was heard as having said in a viral video widely circulated on social media and aired on news channels.
The farmer's movement seems to have given life to opposition parties in the region. Since 2014, the western part remained the BJP's stronghold until the farm laws were introduced in 2020.
Agriculture is the mainstay of people in the 21 western districts of Uttar Pradesh and prominent politicians in the region came from the farming community using agrarian issues until religion and caste issues dominated the electoral politics of the state.
It was in this context that the controversial farm laws, and their opposition by farmers in the region, united under the banner of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), became significant.
The protest rallies called by the farmers against the controversial farm laws in the later stage became a huge success with people from all castes, communities and religion freely attending them.
GETTING FARMERS ON THEIR SIDE
Eight people were killed on Oct. 3 during a farmers' protest at Lakhimpur Kheri, about 132 km north of Lucknow.
Four farmers and a journalist were run over, allegedly by a vehicle driven by Ashish Mishra. The incident triggered violence in which three more, including two workers of the ruling BJP, were killed. Mishra is the son of federal junior home minister Ajay Mishra. He and others are currently in jail facing murder and conspiracy charges.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) entrusted to probe the killings at Lakhimpur Kheri said the violence was a "planned conspiracy" with intent to commit murder and not a case of death by negligence.
There is growing pressure from the opposition parties that the federal junior home minister should be sacked.
Now, with the withdrawal of the farm laws, the BJP seems to have reached out to the people especially in the western part of Uttar Pradesh to keep its vote bank intact.
Farmer leader Rakesh Tikait told Xinhua people were intelligent enough and have a fair understanding of the entire agitation.
"People have seen how farmers kept their struggle alive for around a year and what was the government's attitude," Tikait said.
"They (BJP) can go and tell people. But people are intelligent enough to understand all this. The fact remains farmers still are experiencing huge financial losses without minimum support price from the government."
Zoya Hasan, an Indian academic and a political scientist, anticipates the revocation of the farm laws will not help the BJP in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh elections.
"I don't think the repeal of farm laws will help (the) BJP because the laws have been withdrawn under popular pressure and sustained farmers' movement -- one of the largest and longest since India's independence or anywhere in the world..."
Hasan said the laws have been repealed as the BJP feared this would adversely affect their chances in Uttar Pradesh, which is a pivot of power for the rightwing party. Enditem