Congress’ tactic: Kalawati

Congress can only protect the dying farmers. Only Rahul Gandhi can. Only Congress can replace poison from their food and give a new life to the suicidal peasants. Only Rahul Gandhi can. Ministers are responsible for their present sorry state. The Prime Minister can also be, but not Congress and definitely not Rahul Gandhi. Probably this is what Kalawati would say to the farmers of Vidarbh.

The ministers aspire to become the Prime Minister. Sharad Pawar in spite of throwing farmers to suicide wants to become the next PM and Manmohan Singh, whose policies drove farmers to death, aspires to become the Prime Ministers again.

“It has only been possible due to Rahul Gandhi that people now know about Amravati, Yawatmal, Akola, Buldhana and Chandrapur. The leaders of India only came to know about Vardha because of Mahatma Gandhi but because of Rahul Gandhi people now know about us. They have been acquainted with our villages. If Rahul Gandhi would have not been there no minister would have come. If Congress comes to power this time, Rahul only will lead the nation and the voices of us farmers will be heard.” This is something that possibly Kalawati would want to say.

This is Kalawati’s saga whose pain was felt by Rahul Gandhi. The time when the Parliament was busy debating the nuke deal, Rahul Gandhi brought Vidarbh’s Kalawati and farmers into light and now it seems that she is being trained for the upcoming Lok Sabha Elections. This is an effort of the Congressmen in Vidarbh who think the farmers are enraged with them and can go against them while voting. In this light, some petty politicians reckon that it would be better to publicize UPA sans Congress’ policies.

Sharad Pawar is also a target. Farmers are being acquainted with the fact that each department is headed by a minister. Had it been just about Congress, Rahul Gandhi would have managed it, but actually it’s about various parties who have claimed departments in the Centre and Sharad Pawar is one of them heading agriculture. Pawar promised Gandhi that he would ensure wellness of farmers. However, to defame Congress, he did nothing substantial for the farmers. The local Congressmen not only targeted Sharad Pawar but also Praful Patel, who himself belongs to Vidarbh. The so-called antagonism between NCP and farmers is visible in the speeches given by NCP.

The lands of farmers were snatched away by the government on the name of development and subsequently permission was granted by the Centre to construct buildings. To build an international cargo, 20,000 farmers were rendered jobless. In the last 5 yrs, more than 20.000 farmers have killed themselves. This is the result of the unfulfilled promises made by ministers. The same Praful Patel that initially talked about water and roads, now talks about air planes and cargos. The same Praful Patel who once did his business from Nagpur and travelled in his car now flies abroad for expanding his business to America and London. Now it’s for the farmers to decide whether they want their daily bread or build castles in air.

The Vidarbh farmers are furious over Manmohan Singh too as no promised aids reached them. Both, loans by banks and by lenders are being recovered still. The tedious policies of banks to maintain transparency on the contrary have become a headache to the farmers, jeopardizing even their money safety. No issue came up in open. Names of around 2 lakh farmers from Akola and Amravati are registered in the banks. They were supposed to get a sum of amount ranging between 20,000 and 1.5 lakh till 2008 but unfortunately they haven’t received a single penny. However, as claimed by the government a total of ten crore approximately has been already given.
After the declaration of PM’s relief the rate of suicides among farmers increased by a 20%. Earlier the average of deaths per month was between 50 and 57 % but after the package it increased to 65 - 70%. After the budget was made on the 16th February 2009, 27 farmers committed suicide in Vidarbh in a matter of 20 days. Congress as an escapist subscribes to the fact that Manmohan Singh doesn’t belong to Congress but UPA, like Sharad Pawar.

Kishore Tiwari, who works for the farmers, thinks that promises of ministers’ makes farmer hopeful for development. Afterwards the same farmer heads towards Delhi or Mumbai for earning livelihood. The farming stops and they don’t even intend to work under employment guarantee schemes and in the end commit suicide.

Before the 2004 Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha Elections, Sonia Gandhi went to meet a farmer’s widow in Vardha. That visit had some political influence. Shiv Sena took the same path and sent Uddhav Thackeray to similar visits. Similarly, L.K Advani also visited Vidarbh thrice disillusioning RSS and the farmers justifying his presence. BJP Chairperson Rajnath Singh started his journey from Vidarbh. PM Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi paid two-two visits each to Vidarbh. Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar went there twice in his whole term and if we calculate the total number of visits by ministers and other government officials it comes out to be over a thousand.

According to NREGA, Vidarbh is the region where least or no work has happened. Promises over giving relief packages have been numerous that now no farmer wants to leave his field for even a day to do any other work for a hundred rupees. Even the NREGA officials don’t want them to do any such work as this would start a new saga of joblessness among the farmers which would for sure go against the government. Congress firmly believes that if farmers stand by them nothing can stop them from winning.

In 1997, when congress lost the whole nation, Vidarbh was the only region where it won 11 seats. This time however, there seems no scope; the public has become more important than a minister. In this light it seems a good proposition for Congress to find a Kalawati in every region to ensure its success.