Samyukta Kisan Morcha urges Telangana farmers to vote against BJP on May 13

Hyderabad: The Samyukta Kisan Morcha, Telangana State committee, has appealed to the farmers to defeat the ruling BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections scheduled for May 13.

Calling for ‘isolating, opposing and punishing the BJP’ for not implementing the promises made to the farmers, the farmers’ union alleged that the Union government is ready to hand over agricultural land to corporates. “During these 10 years of BJP rule, 4.25 lakh farmers, agricultural labourers and daily wage labourers committed suicide. The Central government has not taken any specific measures to prevent this and has decided to hand over the agricultural sector to corporates,” their public statement said.

Farmers protest

Speaking about the farmers’ protest in 2020-21, The union said, that after 13 months of struggle and after 750 farmers lost their lives, on December 9, 2021, the Central government promised in writing that it would repeal the three agricultural laws, implement the Minimum Support Price Act, waive off loans, not put the Electricity Amendment Bill in the Parliament without talking to the farmers and remove the police cases on farmers.”

“However, the promises were not implemented and the agriculture sector has been taken over by the big corporates,” the farmers’ said and added that the funding for the crop purchase scheme has been cut and no attempt was made to waive the debts that caused farmers’ suicides. They alleged that lakhs of crores of rupees have been waived off for big corporates.

“The MSP Act does not work. The promise of doubling farmers’ income by 2022 has been dashed. It was during this period the Forest Conservation Act was violated while the right documents were not issued under the Forest Rights Act, 2006,” the farmers said.

Speaking about how the government is trying to weaken civil society by jailing intellectuals and journalists who are standing by the farmers, they said that an unsuccessful attempt was made to amend the 2013 Land Acquisition Act.

'Everyone being deprived of rights'

The farmers said that even as they are demanding a government daily wage of Rs 700 and an increase in the number of working days in the unemployment guarantee scheme, the government has been reducing funds for them in the last decade. “The demand to give pension to every farmer who completed 60 years was ignored and promise of doubling the income was unfulfilled,” they said.

“Severe restrictions were imposed on the farmers’ movement after the announcement of the protests,” the farmers said and added that the failure of promises made to the peasantry has also deprived the rights of workers, farm labourers, students, youth, women, minorities and marginalised social classes.

They appealed to everyone to save agriculture and stop the BJP from winning the ensuing Assembly and Lok Sabha elections across the country.