'2019 Lok Sabha polls will be fought on farmers' issues'

Farmers would now decide the politics of the country and the 2019 Lok Sabha election will be fought on issues concerning them, a farmers' body said today.

The leaders of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC), an umbrella body of farmer groups, said they have a collective agenda to make the issues of farmers as the core issue in Indian politics.

The AIKSCC leaders had requested President Ram Nath Kovind yesterday to convene a special session of Parliament immediately to discuss the ongoing agrarian crisis in the country.

A 17-member delegation had met the president and submitted a memorandum urging him to address the immediate crisis of farm debts and guaranteed remunerative minimum support prices of farm products.

"Whether it is Gujarat (assembly) elections or Karnataka elections, it has now been very clear that farmers would now decide the politics of the country. The AIKSCC is not a political body, but we have a collective agenda that the politics of the country and the coming Lok Sabha polls in 2019 would be fought on the issue of farmers. Because it is the biggest challenge for the country," Yogendra Yadav, leader of Swaraj Abhiyan and a member of the AIKSCC, told reporters today.

Accusing the Narendra Modi-led government of being anti-farmers, the leader said that in the last four years, the government had always promised a lot for the farming community, but did nothing.

It is the reality that in the history of independent India, it is this government which is the most anti-farmer government till now, Yadav said.

The AIKSCC, which has 193 farmers' organisations associated with it, has in the recent past secured the support of 21 political parties for the two bills it created to secure legal rights for farmers for freedom from indebtedness and for guaranteed remunerative prices.

In continuation with its drive to rally farmers all over the country for securing their basic rights, the AIKSCC today gave a call for marking the first anniversary of the "killing" of six farmers in Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh in 2017 as 'Mandsaur Shaheed Kisan Smriti Diwas'.

The committee also announced a three-day programme to mark the occasion which includes a torch light rally in Bhopal on June 4, a commemorative meeting with villagers of Buda village at Mandsaur on June 5, and a day-long fast in Takravat village on June 6.

Madhya Pradesh goes to polls later this year.

The day would be marked with different protest events in 0ther parts of the country against police atrocities on farmers.