BJP national president J P Nadda is set to launch the party’s farm yatra on February 12 from Muzaffarnagar in western Uttar Pradesh ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. The region was one of the key hubs of the farmers’ movement against the now-repealed three central farm laws, which had led to UP-Delhi border at Ghazipur being blocked for over a year in 2020-21.

The BJP plans to reach about two lakh villages – about a third of India’s total number of villages – through this nationwide yatra. At the flag-off event, where UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will also be present, Nadda will address a “kisan-mazdoor” (farmers and workers) rally.

The yatra will seek suggestions from farmers regarding their demands and expectations. The BJP Kisan Morcha’s national chief Rajkumar Chahar, the Fatehpur Sikri Lok Sabha MP, is organising it.

“We had made plans for a Gram Parikrama Yatra some time back. We will go across each village we visit, worship local village deities, worship a cow and a tractor, and have a farmers’ chaupal. We will also give its farmers details of the work done by the Modi government. We will ask them about their suggestions. We will visit 4,500 villages in one day. We plan to do it for a month and will stop once elections are announced,” Chahar told The Indian Express.

“We will appeal to farmers to take to organic farming so as to preserve the soil and the health of people. We will also appeal to farmers to grow millets. They are healthy, require less water and also fetch a good price. We will filter the suggestions coming state-wise and submit them to Nadda ji to be incorporated (in the poll manifesto),” he said.

Combining the party’s farm message with its Hindutva pitch, Nadda will kick off the yatra from Shukra Taal – associated in legend with Veda Vyas, who is considered as the author of the epic Mahabharat – in Muzaffarnagar after ceremonial worship of a cow, tractor and a plough. It would be live-streamed across all zilla headquarters of the party across the country, where 300 prominent local farmers would be invited to watch it.

Nadda would also felicitate farmers’ leaders and ex-soldiers in a region that is known both for sugarcane farming and sending large numbers of soldiers to the Indian armed forces.

There seem to be two key reasons for the BJP to roll out this yatra besides its optics. One, farmers constitute a significant chunk of India’s population. And, two, the Narendra Modi government had faced organised protests for months from farmers of Punjab, Haryana and western UP against its three farm laws that it was later forced to roll back. These protests had led to the blocking of some key roads on Delhi’s borders with Haryana and UP.

The launch of the yatra from Muzaffarnagar is also remarkable as the belt has a significant population of the Jat community, which was at the forefront of the farm agitation. Large sections of Jats are either into farming or armed forces. The most vocal face of the farm agitation was Rakesh Tikait, Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader and son of the BKU stalwart late Mahendra Singh Tikait, who hails from Sisauli village of Muzaffarnagar and also belongs to the Balyan Khap (clan), the largest Jat Khap of UP.

The yatra will also convey information about various schemes of the Modi government to farmers across regions.

According to the BJP Kisan Morcha, the feedback from farmers in the course of yatra would be passed on to Nadda for their inclusion in the BJP’s manifesto for the Lok Sabha polls.

The yatra would also be in sync with PM Modi’s stance that his dispensation recognises only four castes – women, youth, farmers and the poor. This has been the PM’s counter to the Opposition’s caste census pitch, even as the BJP has also sought to reach out to the OBCs (Other Backward Classes), EBCs (Extremely Backward Classes), Dalits and tribals through various moves.