Modi & Co must dispel fear among the farmers
While the Bharatiya Janata Party deliberated on many issues during its first National Executive meet held in Bangalore after the 2014 lok Sabha triumph, the underlying theme was the promotion of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, 2015. This was evident both in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech at a public rally there and party president Amit Shah's address to the National Executive on Friday. The obvious conclusion is that the BJP as a party and the BJP-led NDA Government are determined to take their fight with an obstinate Opposition to the grassroots and dispel the notion that the Bill, the Centre and the party are all anti-farmer. The aggression has come after the President's assent to the re-promulgated Ordinance that the Bill seeks to replace.
It is evident that the Modi Government will not let go of the proposed legislation under pressure from the Opposition, especially after it has made several amendments to pacify dissent from its political rivals and contain apprehensions expressed by a few members from within. It is good that the party and the Centre have finalised a two-pronged strategy to counter the propaganda against the land Bill, particularly the spread of information that it is against the interests of the farmers and in favour of the corporate sector. The first part is to convince as many non-Congress parties as is possible about the merits of the Bill and lay to rest their fears about possible adverse fallouts for the farmers. To this end, senior Government Ministers have been talking to parties such as the AIADMK, the Biju Janata Dal, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party. The idea is to sift fact from fiction and clarify on the contentious provisions of the Bill that is to come up before Parliament yet again. These parties seem to have an open mind and can be considerate if their doubts are cleared. If the Government manages to bring them on board, it will be able to garner numbers in the Rajya Sabha where it is in a minority and also gain a psychological victory by isolating the likes of the Congress and the left parties.
An equally big challenge is to counter the perception the Opposition has been spreading among the people against the land acquisition Bill. The Government's success will depend largely on the effectiveness of the ‘mass contact' programme the BJP plans, to reach out to rural India. Since it has an overwhelming number of MPs from this region across the country, the party should be able to leverage the advantage. The more the Government and the party delay this contact programme the more time their rivals will have to better embed their ill-founded theories. let's not forget that certain opposition parties, starved of an emotive issue, are planning massive public protests in the coming days to put the Government on the mat. The Prime Minister and his team must not lose sight of the fact that perceptions matter a great deal. Half the battle is won or lost here. There is enough material for the party and the NDA regime to take on the Opposition. Mr Modi laid it down well in his last Mann ki Baat radio address to the people and at his Bangalore rally on Friday.