SKM’s Farmer leaders plan strategies to defeat BJP in Lok Sabha elections
The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella organization of over 500 farmer outfits, will hold its national convention in Jalandhar on January 16. The meeting will discuss alternative agricultural and industrial policies before the Lok Sabha elections. Farmers’ leaders will also plan strategies to defeat the BJP in the elections.
According to an SKM press release, the convention will be attended by approximately 1000 delegates from constituent organizations across the country. “The Convention is to expose the pro-corporate economic policies of the BJP-led Narendra Modi government, detrimental to farmers, workers, and people at large, causing large-scale unemployment, price rises, poverty, indebtedness, and unbridled rural migration,” according to a statement released on Friday.
The meeting will also discuss the Center’s development narrative based on the GDP rate and claims that the country will become a three trillion dollar economy. According to the SKM, such claims conceal a decline in per capita income, rising income inequality, and the denial of farmers’ and workers’ minimum support prices and wages.
The SKM stated that two years have passed since they withdrew the agitations in Delhi. Still, the Prime Minister has not followed through on any of the written promises made to farmers, including the implementation of the M.S. Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations, the cancellation of farmers and farm workers’ debts, the halting of electricity privatization, and the installation of smart meters on farms and in farmers’ homes.
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“Farmers who lost crops due to natural disasters did not receive insurance or adequate compensation in many parts of the country because the Pradhan Mantri Fazal Bima Yojna is designed to benefit corporations rather than farmers and agriculture,” according to the statement.
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