As the 2019 general election draws closer, the Opposition parties have scrambled together to put up a united front to beat the BJP, by hook or by crook. This includes hijacking the farmers’ cause and using it as a platform to further their agenda, all the while, pretending to care for their plight.
We had already reported that the farmers’ march to the national capital demanding a minimum support price for their crops and freedom from debt was led by the front with affiliation with various communist and leftist parties.
The march, organised by All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC), a rather spontaneous front which has Jai Kisan Andolan (JKA) and former AAP politician Yogendra Yadav’s Swaraj Abhiyan as its members. All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), another communist frontal organization affiliated to attached to communist political parties, All India Kisan Mazdoor Sabha (AIKMS), associated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), All India Kisan Mahasabha (AIKM), All India Khet Mazdoor Kisan Sabha (AIKMKS), AIKS (Canning Street) which are Left organizations – all constitute the AIKSCC. So needless to say that the farmers’ march appeared as politically motivated as the ‘Kisan Long March‘ held earlier this year in March.
Considering the entire march was spearheaded by Communists and supported by Rahul Gandhi, who in Karnataka, in alliance with Kumaraswamy has failed to keep their promise to the farmers’, for them to pretend to care for the farmers’ and gift wrapping this political rally as a spontaneous farmers’ rally is disingenuous, to say the least.
Farmers’ cause used as a political pitch
Today, when the march, organised by communists leaders reached Jantar Mantar in Delhi, politicians across party lines got together and held hands on stage to show their strength. Congress President Rahul Gandhi, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury and Delhi Chief Minister and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal joined hands and tried to score their political points.
Rahul Gandhi repeated his usual lie that loan of industrialists are waived off (while in reality they are written off, there is a difference) and hence the farmers’ loans should also be waived off. Rahul was joined on stage by CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury and AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal, both of whom pitched for the upcoming 2019 elections. Farooq Abdullah, too, used the platform to make a nationalist pitch by asking the crowd to chant ‘Jai Hind’.
There certainly must have been farmers in that rally, but the organisation and spearheading of it by politicians desperate to hold on to, or regain power was a well-crafted rhetoric. The most tragic part of the entire affair was two-fold. One, the media refused to acknowledge that this was a Communist organised political rally and second, the farmers cause got lost in political lies and rhetoric.
#WATCH Former J&K Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah speaking at farmers’ protest at Jantar Mantar,New Delhi pic.twitter.com/JpdhBgea82
— ANI (@ANI) November 30, 2018
Oh, the irony
The politics behind the ‘solidarity with farmers’ was not lost on twitterati, who were quick to call out the facade.
Thugs of Hindustan ????
— Ashutosh singh (@ashuontwt) November 30, 2018
किसानों के नाम पे नेताओ का मुज़रा देख लो ?? https://t.co/2GGo5kDlUQ
— Arpit Bhargava ?? (@arpit_bhargav25) November 30, 2018
Some even pointed out the high profile ‘farmers’ who were missing from the frame.
One of the most poor farmers, Robert Vadra missing from this protest? https://t.co/fDddCCG1fj
— Harsha Agrawal (@HarshaAgrawal15) November 30, 2018
And some rightly pointed out the irony.
Kejriwal was right.
Sab mile hue hain.. https://t.co/YM5MhrRnHd— Sumit (@_RKSumit) November 30, 2018
This just goes out to show that the said march was nothing bit a political gimmick. That while there might be real farmers in the march, it was more of a tool for the opposition parties to show their strength against Modi.
With general elections just a few months away the political landscape is all set to get murkier. We had earlier seen how the same set of politicians had come together and made merry while ‘protesting’ against the Bihar rape cases. In August this year, fodder scam convict Lalu Yadav’s MLA son Tejashwi Yadav had called for a protest against the rapes for ‘dignity of Bharat Mata’s daughters’ at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar.
Sharing a stage there, AAP Supremo Arvind Kejriwal was caught smiling and sharing a joke with Tejashwi as well as student leaders.
This just goes out to show that the ‘Game of Throne’ has just begun. Winter is coming.
