Street Talk

“Our dal-roti is at stake. If our orchards fail next time, can elections or these leaders guarantee us our livelihood?” asks Bhagat, an elderly grower who has traditionally voted for the Congress. Anyway, he adds, the four Lok Sabha seats in Himachal Pradesh, particularly the Shimla (reserve) constituency, won’t make much of a difference to the chances of the BJP which is way ahead of the Congress according to surveys and exit polls.

The election enthusiasm is totally missing. Campaigning is invisible except for some posters and banners, and canvassing by local cadres is restricted to just the main towns of the state.

It’s easy tounderstand why. The apple industry is a nearly Rs 1,000-crore industry in the state. But this year, almost 80 to 85 per cent of the crop has been lost. The Kiari belt of Kotkhai which used to produce around 30 lakh apple boxes this time marketed just 30,000. The Kotkhai Truck Operation Union had a total booking of 593 trucks for the entire season this time against an average 600 trucks a week the previous year. The orchards which send two truck loads of apple generally had an yield of only 20 to 30 boxes this year.

Even senior Himachal politicians like Thakur Ram Lal, a former chief minister and sitting Congress MLA from the Shimla area, admits that such a severe crop failure has never been seen in the past two decades. The survival of almost 90 per cent of apple growers is at stake, says Vidya Chand, a grower himself from Kotgarh. He adds that had things been otherwise, there would certainly have been more enthusiasm for the elections. “Soon banks will start effecting crop loan recoveries,” he pointsout. “Should we worry about feeding our families, repayment of loans or elections?”

Things do not look good for the next yield as well. Early symptoms of plant diseases are already visible, setting off alarm bells within the prosperous apple lobby. The scientists at Dr Parmar Horticulture University, which surveyed the area, had attributed the crop failure to unfavourable weather conditions — less snow, high temperature and humidity. However, orchard owners dispute this, blaming their losses on plant diseases. “Had weather been the reason, why did a few orchards in the Chaithala belt remain unaffected?” asks Chander Thakur of village Bareon. He says he noticed symptoms of red-mite disease and premature leaf fall in orchards at Manjhole.

Growers take their anger out on the horticulture university scientists, lamenting that they had not come out with scientific answers to their problems and that bad days were ahead. Grower Hem Raj, in fact, predicts: “The days are not far when apple growers willcommit suicides like the farmers in Orissa and Punjab.”

Though the situation may not reach such a stage, the BJP is reaping the harvest of uncertainty and anger. A traditional supporter of the Congress, the apple lobby is right now feeling disillusioned and BJP Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal has been quick to realise this. Unlike party leader Shanta Kumar who had called apple growers “people living under silver roofs”, Dhumal has paid frequent visits to the area already, sanctioned new roads and announced continuation of the support price policy, better handling of the previous bumper crop and payment of arrears due to apple growers by government agencies.

The demoralised Congress has not even been able to bring up the issue of apple import under the open general licence against the BJP. Though the growers feel that entry of foreign apples would cause losses, they feel the BJP cannot be blamed for this.

ASHWANI SHARMA