Insufficient unity of farmers movement led to Haryana election result: SKM

Samyukt Kisan Morcha also said that despite BJP's claim of growing support in its favour, 60.1 per cent voting was against it

Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) said on Tuesday that a lack of network of workers and farmers movements across villages and insufficient unity among them failed to decisively unite people against the BJP in the Haryana polls.

In a statement, the SKM, which led the farmers' protests of 2020, said there are lessons to be learnt from Haryana election results and work towards uniting farmers and workers to fight the "corporate loot and anti-farmer policies" of the BJP-led Union government.

"Even though the majority of the people had voted against the anti-worker, anti-farmer BJP, the opposition political parties failed to displace it from governance due to disunity and internal conflicts among them," they said.

"Insufficient unity of the kisan movement and lack of network of workers and farmers movements across the villages to decisively unite the people caused the failure to isolate and oust BJP," SKM said.

Appealing for greater unity of the farmer organisations, the SKM said it will take efforts to reach out to all sections of working people who "still remain unaware that the acute agrarian crisis and the extreme unemployment stems from the neo-liberal, pro-corporate development policies being pursued by the BJP-NDA combine".

The SKM also said that despite BJP's claim of growing support in its favour, 60.1 per cent voting was against it.

"BJP secured only 39.9 per cent votes - 7 per cent less than the 46 per cent they got in the Lok Sabha election. The toiling masses should recognise the RSS-BJP game plan to divide workers and farmers on caste and religion," they said.

The SKM also said that election manifesto of opposition political parties did not categorically include legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP) for crops at "C2+50 per cent" formula.

It also did not include "comprehensive loan waiver to the farmers and farm workers and minimum wage and social security to the workers" and so failed to arouse and rally maximum sections of the farmers and workers in support of them, the SKM said.

"The SKM and Central Trade Unions had convened the Kisan-Mazdoor Mahapanchayat at Hisar, organised village level Kisan-Mazdoor Mahapanchayat and observed 28th September 2024, the birth anniversary of Bhagat Singh as anti-corporate day in villages as part of the 'Expose, Oppose, Defeat BJP' campaign. These campaigns helped to rally the majority of the workers and farmers to vote against the pro-corporate BJP," they said.

"SKM congratulates the people of Haryana for putting BJP in visible minority out of the polled votes," it added.

Despite predictions by many pollsters about a Congress win, it lost the assembly polls in the state, which was one of the main centers of the ongoing farmers' agitations.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured 39.94 per cent of the vote share and won 48 seats in the 90-member Haryana assembly in the recently conducted elections, while the Congress got 39.09 per cent and won 37 seats.