UTTAR Pradesh, India’s most populous state (241 million) has decided to drop legal proceedings against farmers accused of burning crop waste – a major source of pollution – as the country’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tries to placate the peasant community ahead of the crucial elections in the state early next year.
The decision comes at a time when some Indian states have made stricter punishments for crop residue burning which causes deadly air pollution in the northern parts of the country, especially in capital Delhi, causing a serious health hazard.
Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP came to power in 2017 following a massive victory, is also considering waiving fines imposed on farmers, considered an influential voting group, for burning crop stubble. Yogi Adityanath took over as the chief minister and is looking to return to power in 2022.
Paddy crop stubble smouldering in a field in Sonipat in the northern Indian state of Haryana. (Photo by PRAKASH SINGH/AFP via Getty Images)
“The idea was not to punish farmers but to spread awareness about crop stubble burning and its effect on the environment,” Navneet Sehgal, the additional chief secretary of Uttar Pradesh’s information department, told Reuters.
Shiv Kant Dixit, chief of the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (Indian farmers’ federation) affiliated to the BJP, said it had requested the state government to withdraw legal cases against farmers for burning crop residue.
“About 10,000 farmers have been slapped with cases for stubble burning, and a fine of about ₹100 crore (£9.8 million) was imposed,” Reuters quoted Dixit as saying.
Sudhir Panwar, the chief of Kisan Jagriti Manch (farmers' awakening platform), a farmers’ group, said the UP government is looking to appease the state’s angry farmers ahead of the assembly elections.
BJP lost ally from Punjab over farm laws
Tens of thousands of farmers have been staging protests on major highways leading to New Delhi, the national capital, for several months now, expressing dissent over Narendra Modi government’s new farm laws. The issue has also touched the politics of Punjab, another poll-bound agricultural state in northern India, with one of its major parties – Shiromani Akali Dal – pulling out of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in September last year in protest.
Uttar Pradesh is considered to be the most important state of India politically as it sends 80 representatives to the parliament, more than any other state. Modi’s party has eclipsed all its rivals in the state in the 2014 and 2019 general elections and 2017 assembly elections and is now looking to repeat the same in 2022.
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