How farm protests may change political equations and hurt BJP in key states

The longer the protests persist, the more challenges the BJP will face in Haryana and UP, besides perhaps also in other electorally crucial cow-belt states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan

The number and size of protest meetings or Mahapanchayats across villages of North India against the government’s obduracy on farm laws recalls the crisis faced by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in 2011. Six years into power, and with just about three years to go till the next general elections, its credibility was so eroded by Anna Hazare’s agitation against corruption that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh found it very difficult to govern for his remaining term.

This was despite its dialogic and conciliatory approach to the Anna Hazare-led movement. Four of its senior ministers, led by then Finance