Congress leader P Chidambaram on Wednesday asked if the Narendra Modi government still believed that the farm laws were popular and that only some farmers were against them.
“The farmers are voters,” Chidambaram said in a series of tweets. “So are migrant workers, MSMEs [Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises], the unemployed and the very poor families. When it is their turn, they will vote against the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] like the Punjab voters.”
He was referring to the results of the Punjab civic body elections, in which the Bharatiya Janata Party suffered a setback as the Congress won six out of eight municipal corporations on Wednesday. The ruling Congress won the Mohali municipal corporation election on Thursday. After the final count, the Congress won 37 wards while the remaining 13 went to the Independents.
The Congress had called the win a “tight slap” on the face of the BJP, the Shiromani Akali Dal and the Aam Aadmi Party for playing with the feelings of the farmers.
In another tweet, Chidambaram took a dig at the Ministry of External Affairs. “MEA is fast losing credibility by becoming the Ministry of Extraordinary Apologists for the government’s wrong domestic policies,” he tweeted.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said that the BJP’s setback in the polls was a “curse of Punjab”. In a tweet, he said that the “crop of anger and resentment brewing in the fields of Punjab” has given a befitting reply to the ruthlessness and delusion of Modi and the BJP.
“This [farm law protests] is the largest mass movement of independent India,” he said in another tweet. “85 days, more than 230 farmers’ sacrifices. Spiked wires, nails, barricades, rain, winter. Under the open sky but with no resolve to go home till the egoistic king of Delhi is persuaded to repeal the three black laws.”
In Bathinda, the Congress had bagged the municipal corporation seat after 53 years. Party leader and the state’s Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal tweeted saying that “history” had been made in the city.
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had hailed the victory in the polls as spectacular. “The first major polls to be held in Punjab since the enactment of the draconian farm laws had also underscored people’s angst with the BJP, which was responsible for the anti-farmer legislation with the active support of its former ally, the SAD, and the collusion of ruling AAP in Delhi,” he said. “All these parties had shamelessly trampled on the rights of the farmers, with the clear aim of destroying Punjab.”
Buy an annual Scroll Membership to support independent journalism and get special benefits.
Our journalism is for everyone. But you can get special privileges by buying an annual Scroll Membership. Sign up today!