Bhumi Adhikar Andolan Appeals to Gujarat Peasantry: Defeat Anti-farmer BJP in Gujarat Elections

The BAA urges the people of Gujarat and especially the peasantry including Adivasis, Dalits, Minorities, Fish workers and Forest Dwellers to ensure the defeat of the BJP in the assembly election 2017 for betraying the peasantry and intensifying the anti-farmer neo-liberal policies in Gujarat as well as all over the country.

The plight of the peasantry has become even more miserable under the three and half years rule of the NDA government led by the BJP. The indebtedness, peasant suicides and rural to urban migration are on the ascendant. The Narendra Modi Government has betrayed the peasantry by not implementing the M S Swaminathan Commission recommendation of minimum support price to all crops at the rate of 50% above the cost of production, which was promised in the 2014 election manifesto of the BJP.

The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley reiterates that not a single paisa will be given for loan waiver scheme for farmers. The right of farmers to trade their cattle has been banned by the Central Government and this has adversely affected the meager income of small and middle farmers. The demonetization and GST have badly affected the agrarian economy. Price rise and unemployment have grown manifold under the BJP regime.

The policy in agriculture followed by the Narendra Modi government is anti-farmer and pro- corporate in essence. The notorious land acquisition ordinance to grab the land of the peasantry without even their consent, as brought by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had illustrated the pro-corporate makeup of the BJP. The decision to allow 100% Foreign Direct Investment in agriculture under the pressure of USA and World Bank will further tighten the grip of monopoly capital on trade and agro-processing, and will prove detrimental to the farmers’ interests. The introduction of contract farming will increase the exploitation of the peasantry, contradict remunerative price and eventually they will lose their land and will end up as mere contract labourers of giant agro-corporations.

Bhoomi Adhikar Andolan –BAA has been consistently fighting the anti-peasant policies of the BJP-led NDA Government. Without defeating BJP the interests of the peasantry cannot be protected. Hence BAA appeals to the people of Gujarat in general and especially to the peasantry to ensure the defeat of the BJP and all other anti-farmer forces in the forthcoming assembly elections. The peasantry has to emerge and assert as an independent force to decisively influence the political process in the country in order to overcome the acute agrarian crisis.