Approximately 50 farmers filed their nominations to contest the Lok Sabha elections from the Varanasi constituency, against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Narendra Modi is the current Member of Parliament (MP) of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.
Farmers who are disappointed with the Government of India (GoI) took the decision due to the GoI not fulfilling their demand of declaring turmeric as a food crop. Farmers from Armoor, Balkonda and Nizamabad will go to Varanasi and file their nominations against PM Modi.
P. Tirupati Reddy, the President of The Turmeric Farmers Association of Nizamabad district, said, the farmers decided to contest due to the failure of the Government in bringing turmeric farming under the Minimum Support Price (MSP) and in forming a National Turmeric Board. The MSP would benefit the farmers of these districts, as they could then get a good profit from turmeric agriculture.
This is not the first time the farmers are protesting against the Government. Previously, the farmers held protests and demanded turmeric be classified as a food crop.
Mr. Reddy said, ”Our main intention is get Turmeric Board and MSP for Crop. We will not be campaigning against or for any candidate. We will be meeting political parties for solving our problems (sic.)”
The farmers took this decision as they were inspired by the recent strong move of the Nizamabad farmers to file their nominations against K. Kavitha, the MP of the Nizamabad constituency, Telangana.
Approximately 240 farmers filed their nominations to contest against Kavitha, as the Telangana Government was unable to fulfil their demand.
Uttar Pradesh will contest a total of 80 seats in the Lok Sabha elections, divided into 7 phases. Out of the 80 seats, the State contested a total of 18 seats on the 11th and the 18th of April, in the 1st and 2nd phases of the elections.
The polling for the 10 seats in Uttar Pradesh in the 3rd phase of the Lok Sabha elections took place on the 23rd of April. The polling of the remaining 52 seats will be conducted in 4 phases, scheduled on the 29th of April, 6th of May, 12th of May and the 19th of May 2019.
The major parties contesting the Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha elections are the Indian National Congress (INC,) the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the grand alliance of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP.)
The results of the Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha elections will be announced on the 23rd of May 2019.
Stay tuned for further updates about the Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha elections.
