Assembly elections 2018: Agrarian issues are BJP's biggest challenge in MP

Nearly 3.7 million farmers bought insurance for their kharif crop in 2016 but only 742,000 got payment for crop damage; the rest got paltry amounts

Apotpourri of challenges do not make for an optimistic forecast for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Madhya Pradesh, where a legislative assembly election is due by December.

The issues that exercised the BJP in the Gujarat election—Patidar uprising, agrarian unrest and aspirations of Dalits and tribals, together 35.5 per cent of the state’s population (2011 census) resonate in MP, that has Gujarat for an interactive neighbour. Hardik Patel, spearhead of Gujarat’s Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti, was twice stopped from addressing MP’s Patels. The latter are 10 to 12 percent of the population, live largely in the Malwa region abutting