Survey result: Haryana farmers move on, leaving protest issues behind | India News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: The farmers’ protestsbilled as the catalyst behind AAP’s victory in Punjab, failed to produce a similar output for the Congress in Haryana, where even a prominent leader of the farmers’ agitation Gurnam Singh Charuniwho could only muster 1,170 votes lost his deposit of the Pehoba Assembly seat.
While state agriculture minister Kanwar Pal was among the eight ministerial casualties despite the BJP surprising even poll watchers, the Haryana poll outcome after Western Uttar Pradesh indicates that farmers have not rejected the government’s agricultural policies.
Though Congress candidate Mandeep Chatha won from the Pehoba seat, defeating his BJP rival by over 6,500 votes, Charuni’s performance shows that the years-long agitation during 2020-21 was a thing of the past in Haryana. The farmers seem to have moved on after the government withdrew the three farm laws – the main demand of the protesters – without getting carried away by the change of goal post by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) who led the agitation.
Legal guarantee of procurement of all crops at a minimum support price (MSP) became the SKM’s key demand, something the Congress promised to implement if it came to power after a decade of opposition. But with the BJP government in the state offering MSP for crops other than wheat and paddy, the pre-poll proposal in the manifesto was less attractive as the tenders during the last season broke previous records.
In addition, Haryana farmers have diversified sufficiently into horticultural crops – non-MSP products – to become less dependent on government-assisted procurement, unlike Punjab, where a much larger area sown under paddy and wheat makes the state more dependent on government intervention .
Haryana is also more industrialized than Punjab due to industrial clusters in different parts of the state and rice mills, providing people with employment opportunities beyond farm cultivation. Faridabad, Panipat, Kurukshetra, Hissar and Gurgaon-Manesar belt absorb a large number of workers, unlike Punjab, where industrialists have fled the state in recent months due to high power tariffs, poor policies and security concerns.
However, the BJP’s victory in Haryana may lead to a continuation of the standoff between the government and protesting farmers as the latter continue to push for legal guarantee for MSP. While no fresh agitation is expected in the state, protesting farmers may continue the blockade at the Shambhu border along Punjab-Haryana unless the Supreme Court intervenes to resolve the crisis by ordering the removal of protesters from the current site.