As the flames of Madhya Pradesh’s farmer protests spread across the country, opportunist leaders of Rajasthan Congress grabbed this chance to whet Rajasthan farmers against the state. In a bid to build up a vote bank for upcoming Rajasthan assembly elections 2018, Rajasthan Congress planned a protest march of farmers against the ruling BJP this week. What could’ve been a masterstroke for Congress turned out to be a flop show—all thanks to the in-house feud between the former chief minister of Rajasthan Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot, the rising star of state Congress!
Congress planned a mega-farmer protest in Sikar against Vasundhara Raje this Wednesday. The plan was to play on farmer insecurities and invite them to participate in the protest march headed by Gehlot and Sikar. To Pilot’s dismay, neither the farmers turned up at the venue nor senior Congressmen Gehlot. Needless to say, Pilot’s conspiracy fell flat on his face. The funny thing was that the protest march was limited to just party workers and supporters of Congress. Both farmers, as well as the employed classes, had nothing to do with this mass-resistance. Looks like it’s time for a reality check!
Empty halls at the protest venue were tell-tale signs of Congress’s failures in Rajasthan. Can’t say we didn’t expect this, considering the results of Dholpur by polls 2017—a litmus test for BJP and Congress. The overconfident Congress high command was banking on Pilot’s popularity to encash votes. Sadly, even his community members seemed to shun him for BJP’s ‘development-centric’ politics and the results turned out to be in Raje’s favor.
Taking a jab at Pilot’s failures, Rajasthan BJP secretary Ashok Parnami pinned this on Congress scams and scandals conducted by previous ministers. Speaking highly of Raje’s vision for development, Parnami said that Raje’s powerful, people-friendly schemes won unconditional support from public and farmers. Today, Rajasthan stood second in terms of interest-free loan distribution to farmers. The government has launched e-Nam (e-mandis), Beej Swavlamban, Kisan Kaleva Yojana, Bhamashah Pashu Beema and countless other schemes to double farmer income before 2020.
Knowing this fact, not only farmers, but all other natives of Rajasthan are with Raje today. Judging by the empty threats and weak counters of Congress leader, it’s safe to say that saffron will dominate the upcoming polls once again.
