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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Amid anger over middlemen, Bengal’s rice bowl keeps ear out for Delhi farmer protests -Atri Mitra

Amid anger over middlemen, Bengal’s rice bowl keeps ear out for Delhi farmer protests -Atri Mitra

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published Published on Apr 17, 2021   modified Modified on Apr 18, 2021

-The Indian Express

With 2.5 crore metric tonnes of paddy a year, and almost every family engaged in farming, East Burdwan district is the rice bowl of West Bengal.

Burdwan: AMID much fanfare, in January this year, BJP president J P Nadda visited Mushali here to have lunch at the house of a marginal farmer. Following the meal, he announced the launch of the BJP’s ‘Krishak Suraksha Abhiyan’ and ‘Ek Mutho Chal’ campaign, asking households to give the party a handful of foodgrains each.

With 2.5 crore metric tonnes of paddy a year, and almost every family engaged in farming, East Burdwan district is the rice bowl of West Bengal. Politics here has long revolved around the land, helping the CPM gain a foothold following its government’s land reforms in 1977, and the TMC to make its way in with its Ma, Maati, Manush campaign. In the 2016 polls, the TMC won 13 of East Burdwan’s 16 seats, and retained support in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

However, in this election, the TMC is fighting allegations of corruption by local leaders even as its sitting Bardhaman Purba Lok Sabha MP Sunil Mondol, and two of its MLAs, Biswajit Kundu from Kalna and Saikat Panja from Manteswar, are contesting on BJP tickets.

Eight of the 16 seats vote on Saturday, with the remaining going to polls on April 22.

Struggling to make ends meet, the paddy farmers allege irregularities in distribution of coupons through which they sell rice to mills and low remuneration for their crops. The BJP’s refrain that the Mamata Banerjee government delayed the benefits of the Centre’s PM-KISAN scheme in the state, raised by Nadda during his January visit, has gained traction, though farmers are uncertain due to the bits and pieces they have heard about the protests on at Delhi’s borders against the Centre’s agricultural laws.

Anwar Hossain Mondol (55) runs a small tea shop at the junction of constituencies Khandoghosh and Galsi. His 10 acres don’t yield enough for him to sustain his family, Anwar says. “The price of everything is up… just farmers appear to live in a world apart. They cannot sell their products at higher prices,” he says.

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The Indian Express, 17 April, 2021, https://indianexpress.com/elections/west-bengal-elections-phase-5-east-burdwan-paddy-farmers-middlemen-7277638/


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