Palpable anger among farmers against BJP as Punjab heads to polls
Punjab): As the afternoon sun beats down on the tin shed, about a hundred farmers listen in rapt attention to the old farmer leader on the makeshift stage. «We have the right to ask questions from the government,» the leader is speaking on the stage at Shambhu on Punjab-Haryana border, where farmers were stopped from marching towards Delhi in mid-February.
It has been over three months, but the anger is palpable. A small temporary township has come up at Shambhu border toll booth, about 200 km from Delhi and an hour's drive from Chandigarh. Hundreds of tractors and trolleys have been joined together to make small tenements for farmers. As the season changed from a pleasant spring to scorching summer, air coolers have been installed in these tents.
The anger against the Modi government is now spilling into elections as all the 13 Lok Sabha constituencies of Punjab vote in the last phase of voting on June 1. «Vote for anyone but BJP — this is our call,» says Balwant Singh, state president Bharatiya Kisan Union (Behramke). Singh says the entire farmers morcha has sent word back to the villages to drive away BJP candidates if they come to campaign.
The farmers, however, are tight-lipped about their voting preference. «No party has done anything for the farmers. We have voted — once we voted for Congress, once for Akalis. But nobody has the farmers' agenda on their minds,» says Singh. The farmers had organised themselves, in what is now termed by them as Kisan Aandolan 2.0, and pushed for an MSP guarantee law. They
