Farmers' protest | Arvind Kejriwal's AAP goes big against agri reform laws: Eye on Punjab polls?

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind kejriwal

Ahead of starting his one-day fast on December 14 in support of protesting farmers, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that the contentious farm reform laws were not just against the interest of farmers but also against those of common people.

Later in the day, while addressing his party workers, Kejriwal said that the farmers were doing the country a favour by protesting along Delhi borders.

Ever since the farmers’ protest began along Delhi borders in the last week of November, Kejriwal and other leaders from Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have been most vocal in extending support to the protest.

नया कृषि कानून किसानों के साथ-साथ आम जनता के भी ख़िलाफ़ है। इस कानून से जमाखोरों को आज़ादी मिलेगी जिससे महंगाई कई गुना बढ़ जाएगी। pic.twitter.com/O1APLgC2Ns

— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) December 14, 2020

Apart from urging Centre to listen to farmers, the national convenor of AAP, which is in the opposition in Punjab where elections are scheduled in 2022, has targeted Captain Amarinder Singh asking if the Punjab chief minister acted under pressure from the BJP-led Central government. The two leaders engaged in a Twitter spat over the farmers' protests on December 14.

“I have been with the farmers since beginning.. You have done a deal with the Centre to save your son from the ED. You disowned the farmers’ movement. Why?” Kejriwal tweeted in Hindi, attaching a news article on Singh''s statement calling Kejriwal’s fast “theatrics”.

The AAP faced criticism from both the Congress and the BJP for supporting the protests despite Delhi government notifying the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020 — one of the three agriculture reform laws which has sparked protests by farmers on November 23. Kejriwal, however, defended the move saying that his government had no choice but to implement the Centre’s law.

Both the Congress and the AAP, it seems, have been making attempts to be seen with the farmers, most of them from Punjab, the state where the two parties compete against each other.

The Punjab CM reached out to farmers, by bringing state’s own farm reform laws to reject the Centre’s three farm reform laws. The farmers have hailed the move but questioned if the state laws could be implemented without Centre’s go-ahead.

“If you think farmers are going to be taken in by your dramatics and crocodile tears, then you are totally mistaken, just as you were mistaken when you thought AAP would sweep Punjab elections in 2017,” Amarinder Singh said in one of the tweets targeting Kejriwal.

For Kejriwal's AAP, the farmers’ protest is an opportunity to try reclaim its lost ground in Punjab, where the party has been faced with internal bickering since it finished second after the Congress in the 2017 assembly polls by bagging 20 seats in the 117-member house. The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) got 15 seats in 2017. The party had won four seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. In 2019, however, it won only one seat.

As things stand, SAD has been discredited for being part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the Centre that enacted the contentious laws. Though the SAD’s departure from the NDA was seen as a desperate act in damage control, many doubt its impact on the party’s political fortunes in Punjab.

In his December 14 address, Kejriwal recalled how he refused to convert nine stadiums into prisons for detaining the protesting farmers and visited the border as a ‘sewadar’ (serviceman). He also spoke about how the BJP government locked his doors when he wanted to visit farmers during the Bharat Bandh.

Like other opposition political parties, AAP supported the Bharat Bandh call on December 8. A day before, Kejriwal visited the Singhu border protest site along with his ministers and MLAs. The party went a step further by dispatching party volunteers to help agitating farmers with logistics. The Delhi Jal Board, with Kejriwal as its chairman, appointed nodal officers to ensure availability of water tankers at the protest site.

“Supporting farmers’ agitation can help creating a momentum in favour of the party in Punjab. The anti-Akali votes can be consolidated,“ said an AAP leader.

Recently, the state unit appointed 460 block presidents across 22 districts to strengthen the organisation. The party has appointed Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann as Punjab chief, and also appointed a new leader of the Opposition after a split in 2018.

The tone for AAP’s opposition to the farm bills was set by its Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh who was among the MP’s suspended from the House while the Bills were being passed during the Monsoon Session in September.

Ever since its inception in 2012, AAP has formed government in Delhi three times. Its efforts to expand to other states couldn’t yield much success except in Punjab. The party is now eyeing Uttar Pradesh, apart from Punjab. Assembly elections in both these states are due in 2022.