Ghaziabad: UP polls will decide future of farmers, says RLD chief

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[google-translator]

Training his guns on the government and its “lack of sympathy and sensitivity towards farmers”, Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Jayant Chaudhary spoke extensively on agrarian issues during his second consecutive election campaign in Ghaziabad on Tuesday.

Chaudhary said while the government might have taken a step back– with the roll-back of the contentious farm laws during the winter session of Parliament last year — these elections will decide how long it will stick to that decision.

“The government has taken a step back, but we do not know how long they will stick to their decision. It will be decided by these elections. They don’t have any sympathy or sensitivity towards farmers. You gave them a big majority, and now it is time that you hold them accountable,” Chaudhary said.

The RLD is contesting elections from western Uttar Pradesh in alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP). The agrarian belt of western Uttar Pradesh is seeing a close contest these elections, especially after the yearlong farmers’ agitation at the Delhi borders, which ended only with the repeal of the three farm laws in December. Ghaziabad, along with 57 other constituencies in western Uttar Pradesh, goes to polls on February 10, in the first phase of the seven phased assembly elections.

Chaudhary, the grandson of late Prime Minister and farmer leader Chaudhary Charan Singh, has been hitting the campaign trail in different parts of western Uttar Pradesh, raising issues of farmers in his rallies.

“Your decision will put a voice in Lucknow and will also impact the farmer politics in the country. The opposition to the three farm laws has already led the government to fear that they will lose political ground,” Chaudhary told a gathering at Sadarpur near Govindpuram on Tuesday.

The area is part of the Muradnagar assembly segment, from where the RLD has fielded Surendra Kumar ‘Munni’ as its candidate, against incumbent MLA and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Ajit Pal Tyagi.

He said all that the BJP could talk about was riots and the people needed a fresh start these elections.

“It is unfortunate that we have a chief minister who is so full of anger. We can call him a “baba” or “mahant”, but to call him a chief minister sounds strange,” he said.

“Whenever Yogi ji (Yogi Adityanath) comes to western UP, he does not talk about employment, industrialisation or development of farmers, but keeps talking about riots. So, you have to give him a reply, as we believe that only brotherhood will lead to development,” he said, referring to the chief minister’s speeches in which he spoke of the riots that took place in Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Bulandshahr and Kairana.

BJP leaders, meanwhile, said it was the RLD which owed the farmers replies.

“RLD leaders need to reply where they were when farmers suffered during the Muzaffarnagar riots.(Jayant Chaudhary’s) father, late Chaudhary Ajit Singh, had once commented that it was a given that if there was a car with an SP flag, there would be a goon in it. So, RLD leaders need to explain to farmers why they have allied with the SP,” said Chandra Mohan, spokesperson and secretary of the BJP’s state unit.

According to political experts, the SP-RLD alliance and BJP are focussing on completely different issues–farmers and crime, respectively–and it remained to be seen which way voters will swing.

“Issues such as crime and riots, which the BJP is focussing on, were relevant in the 2017 elections. The RLD is banking on support from farmers and Jats; more so, after the farmers’ agitation, which is more relevant now. So, the RLD is time and again reminding farmers about the issues they faced during the yearlong agitation,” said Sanjay Mishra, associate professor of political science at MMH Degree College, Ghaziabad.


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