MP Cong plans united show at farmers’ rally
The faction-riddled Madhya Pradesh Congress has planned to put up a unity show at a farmers’ rally at Lahaar on Monday as it looks for a winning formula ahead of the 2018 assembly polls.
The kisan sammelan — billed as the biggest farmers’ rally organised by the party in the recent past — though is essentially a show of party’s four-time MP Jyotiraditya Scindia. All Congress stalwarts from the state are expected to attend it, party sources said.
Former Union minister Kamal Nath, AICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh, leader of Opposition Ajay Singh, senior state leader Suresh Pachauri, Congress state president Arun Yadav, among others, will share the dais to revive the party’s ‘Dabra’ spirit.
The ‘Dabra’ spirit is the Holy Grail for the Congress’s unity in the state. In 1993, the late Madhavrao Scindia initiated a conclave of senior Congress leaders in Dabra, a small town 45km from Gwalior, just before the 1993 assembly elections where they managed to succeed in coming to power by defeating the BJP.
The BJP, which wrested back power in 2003, is ruling the state for the past 17 years.
Among others, many attribute the party’s poor show in the state to differences among senior state Congress leaders. But in the growing discontentment among farmers, especially after the killing of six cultivators in police firing and lathi charge in Mandsaur in the first week of June, the Congress sees a political opportunity to dethrone the BJP.
“The party raised farmers’ issues through kisan sammelans and meetings in the past month. It started with Scindiaji’s satyagraha in Bhopal and followed by rallies in Mhow, Khalghat and Mandsaur,” said state Congress spokesperson KK Mishra.
After Lahaar in Bhind district, two other rallies will be organised in Veerpur in Gwalior and Churhat in Sidhi district. Churhat is the assembly constituency of Ajay Singh, son of former Congress leader late Arjun Singh.
Singh, whose father was part of the Dabra conclave, told to HT, “Though the Dabra spirit was of a different era, it is also true that for the past two-three months we are moving in that direction and the Lahaar convention is a step towards it.” The fact that Lahaar is the constituency of Congress MLA Govind Singh, who is closer to Digvijaya Singh than Scindia, too has not gone unnoticed in political circles.
The party, meanwhile, has pulled out all the stops to make the rally a success. In Gwalior, the busy road outside the railway station and elsewhere are dotted with posters. aggravated the problem.
Narayan Hegde, an advisor at the BAIF Development Research Foundation, believes that the establishment of sexed semen production facilities will benefit Indian farmers to a great degree. “If farmers are able to ensure the birth of more females, it will boost milk production and agricultural income,” he said, adding that BAIF also plans to set up a sexed semen production facility of its own.
The sexed semen will be used to artificially inseminate cows. Around 30% of the cattle in India are artificially inseminated using regular semen, and the chances of birthing a male or female are almost equal.
According to the agriculture ministry, there are 300 million bovines in the country. Of these, only 85 million give milk while the rest – including 84 million males – are “unproductive”. Through this programme, the animal husbandry department aims to add six million cows to the milch herd every year.
The CFSP&TI – which comes under the department of animal husbandry in the ministry of agriculture – is one among the 10 centres that plan to establish sexed semen production facilities. Each of these laboratories will annually produce two lakh gender-specified doses of semen.
Calls for global expressions of interest have been issued by the centres. This will be followed by calls for tenders, and the companies that win them will have three months to set up the laboratories. However, nobody seems to know by when the doses will be ready for distribution.
“We are only taking baby steps. The technology is proven, but there are ethical issues involved,” the CFSP&TI scientist said. “Ultimately, this amounts to tinkering with nature.” Widespread use of the semen will dramatically change the sex ratio of Indian cattle.
India is the largest milk producer in the world. Its total milk production was 155.5 million tonnes in 2015-16, divided almost evenly among buffaloes and cows. However, the demand for milk is expected to cross 200 million tonnes by 2021-22.
However, a couple of major hurdles stand in the way of adopting the sexed semen technology. Firstly, the costs are prohibitive and farmers in India may not be ready for it. A dose of sexed semen comes with a price tag of ₹1,500 while a similar amount of conventional semen costs about ₹50.
At present, this technology is used only by a few rich farmers who can afford to purchase the doses from foreign companies. These doses come from males of foreign breeds. Opening labs in India will mean producing the doses in India with indigenous bull and buffalo semen.
Experts say anybody who invests in the technology will be doing so at a risk. Crores of rupees would go waste if farmers do not readily adopt it.