LUCKNOW: The ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) will hold a farmers' meet in Lucknow on September 19 on the completion of four years of the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh.
The Kisan Morcha of the party will felicitate the chief minister on the occasion.
The programme is designed to establish a direct connect with farmers amid indications that the ongoing farmers' agitation will intensify ahead of the 2022 state assembly election.
BJP Kisan Morcha president, Kameshwar Singh, said that an estimated 20, 000 farmers are expected at the Lucknow meeting.
"Fifty farmers from each assembly constituency will be present on the occasion to thank the chief minister for various pro-farmer measures, " Singh said.
The BJP programme comes ahead of the September 27 Bharat Bandh call given by all the farmers' union backing the agitation.
The ruling BJP is now trying to present a division between 'real farmers' and ones agitating for political reasons.
"Theirs is not a farmers' agitation, it's a political agitation, " said Kameshwar Singh.
The BJP has already held farmers' meeting at 298 places in 95 assembly constituencies of the state.
"We selected those assembly segments which had a substantial presence of sugarcane farmers. In these meetings, we interacted with nearly 60, 000 farmers, " Singh said.
The Kisan Morcha also intends to felicitate 71 farmers at each district headquarter on September 17 which is Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 71st birthday.
"We have so many achievements to talk about. As many as 2.50 crore farmers in UP are benefitting through the Kisan Samman Nidhi, soil health cards, crop insurance, kisan credit card, 50 per cent discount of farm equipment. These are some of the many achievements that we will talk about, " Singh said.