Despite being primarily an agricultural economy, Andhra Pradesh, unlike Punjab, has never made the issue of farmers the poll plank. Neither the ruling nor the opposition parties have focused on agrarian issues here for decades.
While the Punjab farmers’ agitation against new farm laws proposed by the Union government dictated the election results in the State putting Aam Aadmi Party on the throne, no such potent force of farmers is visible in Andhra Pradesh.
The main reason for this is that a majority of farmers in the State are tenant farmers, and the actual landowners have little impact of the agrarian crisis on them as their income from leasing out the lands remains unaffected by any crisis.
