Another NDA ally RLP decides to leave to protest against farm laws

Yet another ally and electoral partner Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) has hinted it has decided to break away from the NDA on the question of farm laws.

While the Prime Minister and the Government have gone all out to say that farm laws are important reforms to help farmers, Hanuman Beniwal, a popular leader of farmers in Rajasthan, appears unimpressed.

Beniwal, the lone RLP Member of Parliament, has said he is against the farm laws. Earlier he had claimed that BJP leaders had conveyed that a breakthrough was imminent on the farmers’ movement. But on Saturday he informed the media that he had quit from all the three parliamentary committee of the Lok Sabha of which he was nominated as member.

He announced that he would formally declare the dissociation of the RLP from the NDA on December 26. He also claimed that RLP was preparing to demonstrate in Delhi with two lakh farmers of Rajasthan.

In the next Vidhan Sabha election, he said, RLP would contest the election on its own. The RLP will also contest in the three forthcoming Vidhan Sabha by-elections.

The RLP is a peasants’ party and is largely supported by the Jat community. It has three members in the Rajasthan Vidhan Sabha.

Beniwal, who had left the BJP because of his differences with former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, represents the Nagaur seat. The constituency was once the stronghold of the Mirdhas -Nathuram Mirchandani and Ramniwas Mirchandani. Dr Jyoti Mirdha won this seat in 2009 on Congress ticket.

In the two subsequent Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 2019, Beniwal won the seat and emerged as a strong farmers’ leader in the region. He is a towering figure of the Jat community.