Voting for 90 seats of Haryana Assembly was taking place on Saturday, October 5. People were standing in the voting queue and at the same time messages started coming on their mobile phones that Rs 2,000 had been deposited in their accounts. Prime Minister Narendra Modi pressed a button in Washim, Maharashtra and money started reaching the accounts of farmers. The BJP government has tried this trick in a desperate attempt to somehow win the elections or reduce the margin of defeat. Wonder how the Election Commission approved this? Couldn’t this money go into the farmers’ accounts a day later, i.e. on October 6? There is no point in saying that the day of October 5 was already fixed. If October 5 was already fixed then why did the Election Commission extend the Haryana election date from October 1 to October 5?
It is noteworthy that earlier voting was to be held in Haryana on October 1. But after calculating the festivals and long holidays of Bishnoi community, the Election Commission extended the date to October 5. Till that time there was no information as to when the money from Kisan Samman Nidhi would go into the accounts of the farmers. But before the final voting, advertisements and news were published in newspapers that on October 5, the money from the Prime Minister Kisan Samman Nidhi will go into the accounts of the farmers. The Election Commission could have stopped it. But the Commission allowed this work to directly influence the voting behavior of the people.
Obviously, when the Election Commission did not postpone the decision of depositing money in people’s accounts on the last voting day, then what could it do about the policy decisions taken earlier? Keep in mind that Haryana is a farming state. Soldiers, wrestlers and farmers are the most effective groups. Secondly, it is in those selected states of the country where the vegetarian population is more than the non-vegetarian population. Milk and curd are considered food in the state. That is why the decision of the Maharashtra government to declare the cow as ‘Rajyamata Gaumata’ has also been taken keeping in mind the Haryana elections. Maharashtra is the first state to do so.
Similarly, keeping the farmers in mind, the Central Government some time ago abolished the minimum export price limit fixed for the export of onion and Basmati rice. Due to this limit, farmers were not able to export their crops. While the decision for onion was taken keeping Maharashtra in mind, the decision for Basmati rice was taken keeping Haryana in mind. With this decision also the Central Government had taken two major policy decisions. It announced the implementation of an integrated pension scheme for central employees, similar to the old pension scheme. After this, under Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, free treatment up to Rs 5 lakh was announced for all the elderly above 70 years of age. Even in the matter of all these policy decisions, the Election Commission remained a mute spectator.