The Government was hoping to browbeat the farmers but it got caught in its own game

The BJP-led Union Government has, as promised, passed a Bill to repeal the farm laws. But it must ask itself that one year down since the nation’s farmers – especially those belonging to Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, and then their number went on rising steadily – rose virtually in revolt against the passage of the three farm laws, was all the trouble worth it? There was a siege at the Capital’s entry points; there was vandalism and lawlessness on the ramparts of the Red Fort on a momentous day like the Republic Day and then, the biggest shocker proving the Centre’s cavalier attitude, the Lakhimpur Kheri incident which claimed the lives of at least nine people. In the interim, several farmers committed death by suicide and a few were allegedly murdered while protesting on Delhi’s borders against the “devilish” laws. Quite recently, the Samyukt Kisan Morcha leaders and Bharatiya Kisan Union chieftain Rakesh Tikait, during a rally in Lucknow, warned the Centre that their agitation would be prolonged unless their demands on issuing a guarantee on the MSP and sacking Union State Minister for Home Ajay Mishra Teni, besides doling out suitable legal punishment to his relatives, were not met.

The angry leaders had gone to West Bengal prior to the Assembly elections there and the embarrassing drubbing the Trinamool Congress handed out to the BJP is a matter of record. In the same vein, the still-unsatisfied farmers have now hinted that they would pool in their resources and might in the UP elections against the BJP. No wonder then that the Opposition parties have been overtly siding with the farmers and, now that the Centre has been forced to repeal the contentious farm laws right at the start of the winter session of Parliament ahead of the upcoming Assembly polls, are quick to jump at the chance and taunt the Government. While Congress president Sonia Gandhi and other leaders staged a protest outside Parliament on Monday before the Bill repealing the laws was passed, AIMIM supremo Asaduddin Owaisi mocked the BJP-led Government, saying it had repealed the laws now as it feared losing political capital and electoral advantage in the upcoming elections. All said and done, it now appears that the Government was indulging in upmanship and hoping to browbeat the farmers but it got caught in its own game and didn’t know when to get off the ride. There is a lesson in this for all the stakeholders.