The strategy of anti-BJP parties in Bengal to link recent price rise to the Centre’s new farm laws did seem to work on Tuesday as a large number of farmers in southern districts participated in rallies in support of the agitating farmers on the Delhi-Haryana border and stayed away from fields.

The fact that the south Bengal farmers took part in the protests and stayed away from their farmland — at a time they remain busy for rabi (winter) crop and potato cultivation — prompted the leaders of Krishak Sabha, the peasant wing of the CPM, to claim success of Tuesday’s strike.

They linked the success to their campaign in rural areas pointing out alleged ill-effects of Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act.

“It was easy to connect the farmers on this particular issue as they are the worst sufferers. The farmers who had sold potato at Rs 8-10 per kg in February and March this year had to buy it by Rs 45 from market in November for consumption,” said Binod Ghosh, a member of Krishak Sabha’s East Burdwan unit.

Several farmers who joined the protests said it was their first involvement in organised rallies or a strike.

“I am not the worker of any political party, but I went to attend the rally today to oppose the law that did not help us. I sold my produce at Rs 10 a kg in March and I had to buy the crop at Rs 45 a kg a few days ago,” said Taroni Majhi, a 41-year-old sharecropper in East Burdwan’s Khandaghosh.

Sources in districts like Birbhum, East Burdwan, Nadia, Murshidabad and Hooghly — which house more than 40 per cent of 72 lakh farmers in the state — said the overwhelming participation of the farmers in rallies was a pleasant surprise to them.

Around 1,500 marginal farmers in East Burdwan’s Sargai village of Khandoghosh police station area participated in a rally organised by the Krishak Sabha. At Nanur in Birbhum, around 1,000 farmers took part in a similar rally.

The Congress, which is in alliance with the Left Front in Bengal, also held protest programmes across the state. Pradip Bhattacharyya, senior party leader and a Rajya Sabha member, led a rally of thousands from the Quest Mall in Calcutta.

Trinamul held protest programmes in all 341 blocks in the state. Trinamul insiders said they were not worried about the fact that farmers joined the rallies organised by the CPM and the Congress on Tuesday.

Tea belt defies strikes

Tea garden labourers in north Bengal did not respond to either of strikes — one by farmers and the other by the BJP to protest its supporter’s death in Siliguri — on Tuesday and worked as usual.

Trade unions said the workers’ non-participation in the strike might be because of their realisation that nothing would change for them by taking part in shutdowns and delay in fixing their minimum wages.

Additional reporting by our Siliguri bureau