What do the farmers in Mandsaur want? Farm loan waivers? A basic annual income? Or that they be paid the right minimum support price (MSP) for their produce? The Quint’s ‘Chaupal’ reached Mandsaur to find out the answers to these questions.
On 6 June 2017, Mandsaur a small town in Madhya Pradesh became the centre of agrarian distress when six farmers were killed in alleged firing by the Madhya Pradesh police. But has anything changed since then?
Many poll pundits believe that it was the farmer’s distress that cost the BJP the election in the ‘Hindi heartland’ of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan in 2018. With the 2019 Lok Sabha election months away, the Modi government’s announcement of annual basic income of Rs 6,000 under Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi appears to be a tough sell in Mandsaur.
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