Bharatiya Kisan Union is more about saving Congress than about saving farmers, and there are strong reasons to believe it

The Bhartiya Kisan Union, by far the most important union spearheading the ongoing farmers’ agitation is a duplicitous and hypocritical political front, one which has made no secret of the fact that it is pro-Congress. Although the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) would not like to be exposed at such a crucial juncture, yet, bringing to light their original character should be the duty of all informed citizens. Effectively, it becomes necessary to show how the Bhartiya Kisan Union, under the garb of a union of farmers, is in fact, a front of the Congress party.

The Bhartiya Kisan Union has always been a hypocritical outfit, which has changed its stance on a variety of issues on more occasions than one can recall. However, some U-turns of BKU have been more startling than the others. In 2019, the same union which is today leading the protests against the three farm laws which seek to liberalize India’s agriculture sector was in fact vociferously supportive of doing away with the arthiya system. BKU was also a proponent of direct benefit transfers (DBT) to farmers of Punjab.

On the issue of MSP, the BKU’s opinion dates back to 2008, when the farmers of Punjab and Haryana led by the duplicitous union had demanded that they should be allowed to sell wheat above the Minimum Support Price (MSP) to even private players. Of course, the Congress-led UPA back then had moved to ban corporates and private players from procuring wheat from farmers. While the BKU was pro-corporates in 2008, it has now turned completely socialist and wants only government procurement of crops at the MSP.

While the BKU of 2008 would have welcome the abolishment of the MSP regime in Punjab and Haryana, for them to now come in open support of the same inhibitive scheme is definitely mind-boggling. As a matter of fact, the Kisan manifesto of 2019 asked for abolishment of APMC and Essential Commodities Act. With the three farm laws now seeking to end the monopoly of APMC’s and arthiya’s, the same farmers of Punjab and Haryana, led by fronts like the BKU, are up in arms against reforms they previously demanded.

As for the BKU being a front of the Congress party, an analysis of their Twitter handle proves the same beyond any doubt. The old tweets of the Union, particularly in the run-up to the 2019 General Elections, show that the Bhartiya Kisan Union was rallying for the Congress party and putting out idiotic anti-BJP and anti-Modi tweets.

The BKU, in one of its Twitter threads, went as far as saying, “Congress has eminent economists like Dr Singh who can bring the country back on economic track, especially the agriculture sector. This is why we have decided to support Congress in elections so that a strong Congress Government will pull agriculture from a deep crisis.”

In other tweets, the BKU was seen supporting local Congress candidates, leaving no doubts in the minds of anyone as to where their loyalties lay. As such, it is very possible that the ongoing farmers’ protests are also being conducted at the behest of the Congress party by the Bhartiya Kisan Union.

It becomes clear now more than ever that the ongoing circus at the borders of Delhi being portrayed as a legitimate farmers’ protest is nothing but hogwash. The sooner the Central Government realises the same, and deals with the political activists involved, the better it would be for the nation as a whole.