Monday was the 12th day of the farmers’ agitation. After five rounds of talks between the Centre and farmers’ unions remained inconclusive, the sixth round of talks will take place on Wednesday (December 9). However, prior to that, the protesting farmers have called a nationwide ‘Bharat Bandh’ on December 8 (Tuesday). The leaders of 20 Opposition parties including the Congress, Samajwadi Party, NCP, DMK, Left Front, among others have supported the ‘bandh’. The Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Shiv Sena have also joined ranks with the Opposition that has stood up to back the protesting farmers. The Aam Aadmi Party too has backed the ‘Bharat Bandh’. Here, we want to analyse whether this strong opposition from so many parties is actually a show of strength for the farmers or simply an opposition against the government.
If we take into account the number of parties supporting the bandh, we see 133 MPs are in favour of the nationwide strike,…