Firoze Rozindar

Bengaluru: When the BJP government by Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced to repeal three farm laws passed by the government ahead of the UP elections, it was believed to be a calculated move of the BJP.

The party which was in no mood to lose UP as it is considered as a highway for any party to form the government at the centre, was even ready to go to any extent including a compromise on its ‘ego’ to see that UP falls back into its kitty.

The decision of repealing farm laws well ahead of the UP polls was aimed at deflating the farmers’ anger before going ahead with the polls in the biggest State of the country.

The expert believes that repealing the farm laws acted as one of the various important factors in the victory of the party and fizzing out the wrath of the farmers in the polls.

While the announcement to repeal the farm laws is one of the reasons, another reason which helped the BJP to garner votes of the farmers was the UP government’s success in reducing the payment of arrears to sugarcane farmers, which helped the party.

Apart from these two farming-related measures that have helped the party in winning the votes of farmers, one of the major factors which are believed to be an intrinsic part of the electoral politics of UP is- caste politics.

The caste factor has always played a crucial role in UP  politics for decades. No matter what kind of agitation is launched by the farmers ultimately when it comes to elections, everything boils down to caste.

Since UP has a majority of the Jath population who are not only farmers but mainly are staunch supporters of the BJP, it is believed that the caste factor has finally gone into the favour of the BJP.

Though several Jath leaders such as Rakesh Tikait and RLD leader Jayant Chaudhari made extensive campaigns against the BJP, they perhaps failed to read the undercurrent and the mind of Jath people who had made up their minds to vote for the BJP.