‘It is not a farmers’ protest, I know the reality’
Newly appointed Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) kisan morcha (farmers’ wing) chief Rajkumar Chahar, 53, has hit the ground running. Two days after being named for the post, the Lok Sabha MP from UP’s Fatehpur Sikri has decided to visit across the country to meet farmers. His decision comes even as protests against three contentious farm reform laws are being witnessed in several parts of the country.
Chahar, a Jat leader, will first visit Chandigarh on Tuesday followed by Haryana. He is also looking forward to visiting western UP, to which he belongs and where farmers’ issues often dominate the political discourse.
Chahar, a first-time MP, has a Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) background. He defeated the then UP Congress chief Raj Babbar in 2019 Lok Sabha polls. He has previously been associated with the temple movement. Chahar, who has also been a district and state level functionary of the kisan morcha, is confident that the farmers’ agitation is largely an opposition ‘gimmick’, which would die down. He was in Delhi meeting senior leaders and spoke to Manish
on the phone. Excerpts:
Chandra You have an RSS background and have been associated with kisan morcha at the district and state levels in the past. But, as the opposition unitedly opposes the farm reforms of the Modi government, this clearly is your big test, isn’t it?
(Laughs) No, no, it’s nothing like that. But yes, you have put it correctly. It’s not a farmers’ protest. It’s the opposition making it appear like a farmers’ protest, which it is not. I also come from a farmers’ family and know the reality.
There are farmers’ factions across the country, which are opposing the agriculture reforms. Various farmers’ factions, including in UP, are uniting on the issue. Simultaneously. 18 political parties approached the President, urging him to not give his consent to the bills. So obviously, it’s not as simple as you make it appear?
Beginning Tuesday, I am visiting various parts of the country to meet farmers, starting with Chandigarh, followed by Haryana and other parts of the country, including Punjab and Rajasthan. We are willing to talk to anyone. In case someone has any misgiving, we are willing to talk. But it certainly isn’t a farmers’ agitation, as the opposition desperately wants people to believe. There is no confusion over the minimum support price (MSP).
Then how do you explain such protests?
See, at the cost of repeating myself, I will say farmers are not opposing these moves of the government. In fact, they are happy because the moves are in sync with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s desire to double farmers’ income. In times to come, you will see the opposition move to whip up protests backfiring.
What’s your role amid these protests?
Our job is to act as a bridge between the farmers and the government. We have to take the various farm and farmer focused measures to the intended beneficiaries. My visits to Haryana and
Chandigarh that would be followed by visits to other parts of the country are part of that.
You come from UP where also there are protests on the issue. Being your home state, what is the role you see for yourself here as the issue often sets the national agenda?
Farmers, whether in UP or elsewhere, won’t fall into the opposition trap. I am to meet farmers in western UP too. I started as a district level functionary of kisan morcha in UP and because of that got connected to farmers and their issues at the grass roots level. Let me tell you, even if Chaudhary Charan Singh and Mahendra Singh Tikait, were alive, they too would have supported the farm move of our government.
So how do you go about placating farmers? I heard there was a plan to approach them with easy to understand pamphlets and other literature?
We will do everything we should be legitimately doing to blunt the opposition canard. Take the move to provide Rs 6,000 to farmers through kisan samman nidhi. There are a series of such moves. We will, of course, talk about them.
You represent a constituency so close to Agra, a potato bowl. For a very long time, there has been talk of setting up a unit of an international potato processing institute there. Any forward movement on that?
Yes, I had met chief minister Yogi Adityanath, union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar and other senior leaders. The village where the land would be allotted for the branch of Potato Research Institute, Peru, has been identified. If all goes as per plan, we will soon have it in Agra.