Farmers expect exit polls to go wrong

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, May 22

Farmers across the country have been voicing their concerns in different ways for long. Now, they are waiting for the results of the Lok Sabha elections that are going to be declared tomorrow.

However, the exit polls have declared that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will again form his government at the Centre. Some of the farmers to whom The Tribune talked to do not want to believe it.

“Anything can happen, there are chances that the results could be different from the exit polls,” a farmer said.

Another farmer from Nakodar said: “I hope that the seats won by the BJP, as shown in the exit polls, could go wrong as we cannot keep having same issues again.”

The farmers had been calling out governments that no one was listening to their woes and everyone was refusing to pay heed to their problems.

Book in Punjabi highlights their issues

Recently, following a call by the Rashtriya Kisan Mahasangh, farmers in Punjab got posters printed which read: “Vada khilafi karan valiya rajneetik partiyan da pind andar aana mana hai” (Entry of political parties not fulfilling their promises made before coming to power, to village is banned). The Rashtriya Kisan Mahasangh had released a book in Punjabi — ‘Narendra Modi Kisan Virodhi’.

Shiv Kumar Sharma, a core committee member of the mahasangh from Madhya Pradesh, had said the book was meant to create awareness among farmers regarding decisions taken by the Centre in the past five years that could prove detrimental to the farmers. The farmers said the BJP government had taken 28 decisions which proved harmful to the farmers. Earlier, political parties included the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission report in their manifestos. But this time, no party mentioned farmer-related issues which had left the community dismayed.