It may get tough for Vasundhara Raje as yatra enters volatile home region

Jaipur: Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje may face farmers’ ire during the fourth phase of her Gaurav Yatra that begins in Kota division on Friday. The region, also known as Hadoti, comprises 4 districts— Kota, Jhalawar, Bundi and Baran— and has 17 assembly seats, including Raje’s constituency Jhalrapatan in Jhalawar. His son Dushyant Singh also represents Jhalawar-Baran in the Lok Sabha. In the current assembly, BJP has 16 members while Congress has a lone representation from this region.

Raje, however, will skip her own constituency, where two days ago NSUI , the student wing of Congress, edged past BJP’s student wing, ABVP, in university elections.

Stakes are high for Raje in this region which has witnessed unrest among farmers over last few months.


Duli Chand, district president, Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Sabha (AKS) told ET that there have been over 70 farmer suicides in Hadoti since 2014 due to farm distress.

“Farmers are victims here. Due to heavy rains, crop of urad, tilli and soyabean have been washed away. We are already under pressure due to non-procurement of garlic as promised by the government.

It’s a double whammy for us. Garlic glut has forced farmers to commit suicides,” he said.

Duli Chand said that farmers will meet the chief minister and give her memorandum demanding compensation for the loss of crop and complete procurement of garlic.

“There was a bumper crop of garlic about 90 lakh quintal this season.

Government had targeted to buy 15 lakh quintal but bought only 7 lakh quintal leaving farmers in lurch as government ended procurement process on June 30.

If government doesn’t intervene, region will see more such suicides,” he warned.

The government however has maintained that suicides have not been due to agrarian reason.

“It is wrong to link every suicide of farmers to debt. In most of the cases during police investigation it was found that suicides were committed due to family or personal reasons,” said Prabhu Lal Saini, agriculture minister.