With the crisis in agriculture telling on its recent electoral fortunes, especially the by-poll to the Kairana Lok Sabha seat, the BJP on Tuesday made a peace offering to agitating farmers for a "dialogue without condition".

Reports of the Centre’s plans to announce a package of Rs.8,000 crore to clear sugarcane arrears coincided with the BJP’s Kisan Morcha President Virendra Singh Mast making a fervent appeal to "all farmers in distress to initiate dialogue".

Rahul in Mandsaur today

With Congress President Rahul Gandhi announcing his plan to address a public rally in Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh, on June 6 — the day five farmers were killed in police firing last year — the BJP’s farm front leader said, "Why is it that agitations are organised only in poll-bound States? As a farmer myself, I can say that those who are spilling milk on the roads and crushing their produce under vehicles cannot be farmers. There is obviously political motivation."

According to the BJP leader, who is also an MP from Bhadoi, Uttar Pradesh, no government since independence has done so much for farmers as the Narendra Modi dispensation has. "But if the farmers are upset, we are ready to talk to them any time. I am ready to go to even those who are organised by the communists or by the Congress. But the Opposition should not play politics with farmers’ sentiments," he said.

’Call special session of Parliament’

Responding to the BJP’s ’olive branch’, Raju Shetty, an MP from Maharashtra and a member of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC), an umbrella body of 193 farmer organisations, said that if the ruling party is so keen to address farmers’ issues, it should call a special session of Parliament.

The AIKSCC members, including Shetty, CPI(M)’s Hannan Mollah and other activists like Rampal Jat and Pratibha Shinde met President Ram Nath Kovind on May 28 and demanded a special session of Parliament to discuss the crisis in agriculture.

"The BJP’s farm front leader is right in one way - no party since independence has caused so much damage to the farmers than the BJP. The farmer is under acute distress. Our coordination committee members have asked the President to get the government to convene a special session. When Parliament can meet at midnight to announce the GST because the Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants it that way, why can’t they call a special session to discuss farmers’ issues," Shetty said.

The BJP is clearly worried about the political impact of farmers’ agitations, which have begun causing electoral reverses, last year in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat — the local Patidars voted against the party — and now in Kairana, a sugarcane-growing district where the BJP lost heavily to the Rashtriya Lok Dal in the recent Lok Sabha by-poll.

Protests have been constantly held in nearly all States, particularly in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, and in Maharashtra. A course-correction is under way with the Centre’s reported plans to announce a package to clear cane arrears and the BJP’s appeal for a dialogue with all the agitating farmers.