The Congress’ campaign in Uttar Pradesh is playing out much like the 2015 campaign in Bihar. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi started a 2,500-km long march from Uttar Pradesh’s Deoria on Tuesday by visiting a temple — a significant gesture, as the Congress is now trying to shed its “anti-Hindu” image and aiming for the upper caste vote.
The other thing high on Mr Gandhi’s agenda is increasing his party’s appeal to farmers. The Congress vice-president has been distributing forms to farmers at his “khat sabha”. After the meeting, the farmers took the forms with them. About eight lakh forms are to be distributed in Uttar Pradesh before the Assembly elections in 2017. The form asks details about the amount incurred on cultivation, the amount of loan taken, the interest to be paid, the principal amount left and the amount spent on electricity. Mr Gandhi said that “if the PM understands the plight of farmers, then surely the loans will be waived off”.
The data from these forms will be collated and analysed by the Congress. Once that is done, the party intends to petition the Prime Minister using the data.
The main demand will be to waive of all farmer loans. The party feels that this demand, so close to the election, has the potential to put the government on defensive.
This move is reminiscent of the 2015 Bihar elections. In the run up to those elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made a comment about the DNA of people from Bihar. Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar had promptly sent DNA samples by post to the office of the Prime Minister. The idea was mooted by strategist Prashant Kishor, who is now helping the Congress in Uttar Pradesh.
The Congress, using these forms, is trying to paint the NDA government as anti-farmer. Having visited farmers in several states, Mr Gandhi hopes that this demand will help in positioning him as someone who is willing to walk the talk when it comes to issues related to farmers.
There is a substantial section within the party that feels that the UPA 1 government was able to storm back to power in 2009 by waiving farmer loans in 2008.
This time too, the Congress feels that the emotive issue of farmer loans needs to be highlighted. Since it has been a tried and tested formula for the Congress, there is no opposition to it within the party.
Congress spokesperson Sandeep Dikshit said that “the government is ignorant to the needs of the farmers and is instead concentrating on big business. The thinking within the Congress is to show that the Central government is anti farmer”.
After the return of Rahul Gandhi post his 56 day long sabbatical he had made undertaken four padyatras underlining the plight of farmers. He had also used the term suit boot ki sarkar to underscore the point that this government is anti poor.
The Congress is also taking advantage of the statements made by BJP leaders and ministers of farmer suicides. OP Dhankar the Agriculture Minister of Haryana had said that farmers who commit suicide are “cowards”. While BJP MP Gopal Shetty from Maharashtra attributed the suicides to trend and fashion.
Interestingly the Congress is scouting for vote banks in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh elections. The team brought forward by the Congress consists of Brahmins and Thakur. Now they are looking at farmers to join them. The Congress feels that this will give enough impetuous to increase the battered tally of 29 seats in the Uttar Pradesh assembly.
