Madhya Pradesh farmer agitations: PM Modi in damage control mode

A day after five farmers were killed in police firing in Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday held a meeting of senior ministers to take stock of the situation arising out of farmer agitations in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and other states. The PM had a talk on the phone with Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and advised him to deal with farmers’ agitation sensitively.

But the government was clearly nervous, with Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh cancelling a pre-scheduled press conference on the cleanliness drive, while the customary cabinet briefing after the meeting of the Union cabinet was also not held.

The cabinet on Wednesday approved higher support prices for 14 kharif crops, including paddy and pulses, but did not put the decision in the public domain. Sources indicated the cancellation of press briefings had much to do with the farmer deaths in Mandsaur.

Officially, the Bharatiya Janata Party accused the Congress and other opposition parties of engineering the farmer agitations. However, senior party leaders from Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh conceded, although off the record, that the state administration in Madhya Pradesh mishandled the situation and failed to assess the extent of anger among farmers.

A party general secretary faulted the strategy of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government of negotiating with only a single farmers’ organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliated Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, and unilaterally announcing that the agitation has ended. This angered other outfits. The leader said smaller farmers’ groups should also have been taken into confidence and brought to the negotiating table.

The Chouhan government’s announcement ofRs 1 crore compensation to the family members of each of the five farmers killed in police firing betrayed nervousness, the leader said. However, the party’s assessment is that the agitation would die down by June 15, when the monsoon is likely to hit the region. They also said that the nerve centre of the agitation is Malwa, where farmers are prosperous and unlikely to sustain the agitation.

BJP kisan morcha chief Virendra Singh on Wednesday said he would write to the PM and chief ministers of all states, appealing to them to have government departments, the Indian Army and paramilitary forces to purchase farm produce, which would ensure that the produce got a ready market and farmers good prices. Singh, a Lok Sabha member from Bhadohi in UP, said the reason for the ongoing farmers’ agitation was the inability of the farmers to sell their produce at a suitable price.

The BJP farmers’ cell chief, however, said loan waiver could only be a temporary relief and not be a permanent solution. He also agreed that demands for loan waiver were likely to come up in other states after it had been announced in Uttar Pradesh.

Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday held a press conference at the BJP headquarters and demanded that the Trinamool Congress come clean on the source of theRs 24 crore it spent on political campaigns in 2013-14. When asked about farmer agitations, Goyal said his party was sympathetic to the plight of the farmers. Trinamool Congress’ Derek O’Brien said the BJP was employing a diversionary tactic when its government in Madhya Pradesh was firing bullets at farmers and desperately wanted to change the narrative.

In New Delhi, the All India Kisan Sabha, affiliated to the Communist Party of India (Marxist), held a demonstration at the Madhya Pradesh Bhavan. CPI(M) chief Sitaram Yechury said it was an "unfortunate situation in the country" where the government is treating its own people as its enemies. Yechury was attacked by two men of the Hindu Sena inside the CPI(M) office in New Delhi. The CPI(M) chief didn't receive any injuries. The two were turned over to the police.