The agricultural belts in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh too have favoured the BJP, despite the campaigns by the Opposition and the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) against the BJP over economic distress on the rural front. While the promises of an increase in the procurement price for paddy, with a bonus, seems to have worked in favour of the BJP in Chhattisgarh, the assurance that the financial assistance under the PM-Kisan Nidhi will be doubled from ₹6,000 to ₹12,000 has helped the party’s campaign in all the three States. According to BJP leaders, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s guarantee at election rallies that he would extend the Prime Minister’s Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana for another five years also helped the rural and urban electorate look towards the BJP.
For example, in the Malwa-Nimar region of Madhya Pradesh, famous for cultivation of soyabean, wheat and other crops, the BJP won 48 out of the 66 seats. In the 2018 elections, the Congress had won 36 seats from this region. “A slew of measures helped us to win the confidence of farmers,” Bansi Lal Gurjar, national vice president of the BJP’s farmers’ wing, Bharatiya Kisan Morcha, said.
According to Mr. Gurjar, there were two factors that specifically helped his party during the campaigns. “In 2003, the irrigated farming area in the State was about seven lakh hectares. Now, it is 45 lakh hectares. It was the biggest contribution of the BJP to the farmers. Also, the promise of increasing the Kisan Samman Nidhi worked well for us. It is not a rewri (freebie). It will compensate the losses in the cost of production,” he said.
