BJP & JJP leaders face tough time in Haryana’s Jat heartland. Farmers protest, boo, force them away – ThePrint – Select

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Ambala: When Mohan Lal Badoli, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from Haryana’s Sonipat parliamentary seat, went to campaign at Rohna village earlier this month, he was surrounded by hundreds of jeering and protesting farmers. 

The escalating situation forced Badoli to cut short his election speech and hurry away, as seen in a video that Gaurav Singh, a Congress aspirant for the Hisar parliamentary seat and son of six-time Congress MLA Sampat Singh, posted on X Sunday. 

This isn’t an isolated incident. As Lok Sabha elections approach and campaigning picks up steam, videos on social media show that candidates of the ruling BJP are facing protests from farmers in several constituencies. 

According to Pagri Sambhal Jatta Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, a farmer union and constituent of the larger umbrella body Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), these protests are part of the ‘Jawab Do, Hisab Lo (seek answers, hold them to account)’ campaign — a concerted effort to hold the ruling establishment accountable for its work over the past five years.

This pushback is especially strong in the state’s Jat heartland, comprising four parliamentary seats — Sirsa, Hisar, Rohtak, Jhajjar — and 36 assembly seats.

Significantly, this development comes two months after farmers in Punjab renewed their protests for a law guaranteeing minimum support price — a government intervention assuring farmers a fixed price for their produce despite market vagaries.  

And it’s not only the BJP leaders that are being met with such anger — leaders of its former ally, the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), too, are bearing the brunt of it. For instance, a video shared by the Aam Aadmi Party on 5 April showed former deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala being stopped from entering Nara village in Hisar, a Jat stronghold.   

According to Mandeep Nathwan, state president of the samiti, farmers have prepared a list of 20 questions to ask leaders of the ruling establishment.  

“This is a legitimate right of the constituents to ask them questions about issues that matter. It’s only in cases where, because of their arrogance, the BJP-JJP leaders don’t want to reply to our questions and want to seek people’s votes, that such commotion is witnessed,” Nathwan said. 

Chautala’s younger brother Digvijay Chautala blamed the “BJP’s misdeeds” for these protests. Significantly, the BJP dropped the JJP from the Haryana government last month in a major reshuffle.   

“A sense of extreme anger prevails against the BJP across Haryana today. Whether this is against the former CM Manohar Lal Khattar or there are other reasons, we don’t know. But wherever their (BJP’s) candidates are going, they are facing protests from villagers,” Digvijay said in a video following the protest against his brother.

However, when asked what he thought about the video which showed Dushyant Chautala being stopped from entering the Hisar village, former chief minister Khattar condemned it as “a wrong way to protest”. 

“Those who are unhappy with a candidate can vote against the person in the elections. But stopping candidates from campaigning is not right in a democracy,” Khattar said speaking to the mediapersons Saturday.

Also Read: What’s Dushyant Chautala’s politics? JJP to contest all seats in Haryana but keeps door open for BJP

MSP, Swaminathan report — what farmers are asking  

Like Badoli and Chautala, BJP candidates Ranjit Singh (Hisar), Arvind Kumar Sharma (sitting MP, Rohtak), and Ashok Tanwar (Sirsa) also faced protests.  

One video from Sirsa also showed protesters tearing off posters from a BJP van.  

Jats, estimated to form 22-23 percent of the state’s population, hold sway on all four seats.

Such angry demonstrations aren’t limited to candidates and extend to party leaders who campaign for them. For instance, Haryana deputy speaker Ranbir Singh Gangwa was met with vociferous protests when he went to Hisar to campaign for Ranjit Singh.

According to Anil Gorchi, executive member of Pagri Sambhal Jatta Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, among the most prominent questions that BJP and JJP leaders are asked concern the recent round of farmers’ protests. 

“Why were farmers not allowed to move towards Delhi (during the renewed farmer protests in February), why were nails put on the roads to stop their tractors, why have the BJP and the Narendra Modi government at the Centre not implemented the MSP in their 10 years of power,  why has the party not kept its promise of implementing recommendations of the Swaminathan committee report, and why has the BJP decided to field the leader responsible for the death of farmers at Lakhimpur Kheri yet again,” he listed. The last question refers to the 2021 incident when the vehicle allegedly belonging to Union minister Ajay Teni rammed into a group of protesting farmers, leading to violence that resulted in the death of eight people.

Other questions are about the waiver of farm loans, compensation for flood-affected farmers, and the controversial Agnipath scheme. 

On its part, the BJP is trying to play down these protests, calling it the work of “a few elements that want to create trouble at the behest of the Opposition”.     

“People will vote for Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha elections. Our party is going to win all 10 seats from Haryana. The Opposition is unable to match the popularity of the BJP and is hence trying to divert people’s attention with such tactics,” state party spokesperson Sanjay Sharma.

But the Opposition is trying to corner the ruling dispensation, claiming that the situation shows the extent of anger among people.

“Everyone knows that BJP MPs have never visited their constituencies since their election in 2019. With elections around the corner, they want people’s votes again. People’s anger is justifiable,” Congress leader and former chief minister Bhupinder Hooda told ThePrint. 

Congress leader Gaurav Singh agreed. “Now, after five years, people are asking them to account for their absence,” Singh said over the phone. 

Meanwhile, Chautala’s mother Naina Singh, an MLA from Badhra, said this week that the JJP was “paying the price for allying with the BJP”.

“It is a common saying that weevil also grinds with gram,” she told the media Monday. “I would like to tell the farmers that Dushyant Chautala was neither the agriculture minister (in the state) nor a minister at the Centre. He didn’t have the power to stop what was being done to farmers.”

(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)

Also Read: No point working with Khattar when there’s no faith, says former Haryana home minister Anil Vij

 

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