Himachal Pradesh is a small state which sends just four MPs to the Lok Sabha and matters little when it comes to the formation of the government at the Centre. However, the state assembly election has seen the emergence of powerful lobbies raising demands which impinge on the Centre’s domain. Add to this inflation and joblessness, which have emerged as top issues in the election and you have the Modi government’s double engine – model come into question. The over 200,000 strong government employees lobby, which has been demanding the restoration of the old pension scheme (OPS), which has been replaced by the New Pension Scheme (NPS) offering lesser returns. As the government employees have not been paid the arrears of the revised pay under the Seventh Pay Commission, there is a lot of angst, which is denting the BJP’s double-engine claim. While Priyanka Gandhi, campaigning for the Congress, has announced that the party will make the restoration of OPS its priority if it comes to power, Anurag Thakur, Union I&B minister, has hinted that the party will address the concerns of government employees. Another lobby that is flexing its muscles is the apple growers lobby. The annual apple crop accounts for Rs5,000 crore (over 13.5 per cent of the state’s economy). The lobby wields influence across 20-25 seats. Their profits are shrinking due to rising cost of inputs, including cartons. In 1990, the state saw one of the fiercest agitations by apple growers. The demand by the protestors from the then BJP government headed by Shanta Kumar was to fix a minimum support price for the apple crop. In Kotgarh, where hundreds of protestors got together, the police fired shots, leaving three farmers dead and many injured. The agitation changed the political climate and the Congress with Virbhadra Singh won 60 of the state’s 68 seats, while Shanta Kumar lost in both seats he had contested. Eventually, the Virbhadra government introduced the Mandi Intervention Scheme (MIS) to fix a minimum price for the crop. Rising costs, dwindling profits Last year, apple growers in the state came back on to the streets with a set of demands faced with rising costs and dwindling profits. Prominent among these demands was the rollback of the increase in the GST on apple boxes from, which went up from 12 per cent to 18 per cent. Besides, apple growers were also angry about pending procurement payments under the MIS scheme, and the rollback of scheme for distribution of sprays, insecticides, and fungicides on subsidised rates. Another complaint by the growers was the conditions and procurement price fixed by Adani Agri Fresh, which farmers said was too less and in turn, was affecting the open market.
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Apple growers are up in arms against the government
