The Political Economy of Agricultural Policy Reform in India

116 CHAPTER 9

and green cover implemented by any state” (Economic and Political Weekly 2002). This policy can be seen as another element of Naidu’s progressive reform agenda. Under this law, wells have to be registered with a new authority that can prohibit groundwater pumping in certain areas and even order closure of wells. This legislation followed the “Neeru-Meeru” program created in 2000, an ambitious project to conserve water across 10 million acres of land in dif- ferent climatic and geophysical zones. The program acknowledged the need to coordinate the conservation efforts of different government departments— forestry, irrigation, rural development, horticulture, animal husbandry, min- ing, and groundwater.

The 2004 Elections

After escaping an assassination attempt by the communist People’s War Group, Naidu opted for an early election, hoping to capitalize on voters’ sympathy. Consequently, the TDP election campaign was centered on him. As Srinivasulu (2004, 12) observes, Naidu facilitated this process by declaring the election a referendum on his nine-year rule. Accordingly, the TDP campaign focused on the reform agenda, next to law and order and political stability. The Congress Party campaign, by contrast, focused on what had become widely accepted as the “crisis of the agrarian sector,” both in Andhra Pradesh and throughout the country (see Suri 2006). Two factors contributed to the prominence of this topic on the political agenda in Andhra Pradesh: the drought in 2002/03 and the problem of farmers’ suicides. The media, farmers’ organizations, and the left-wing parties sustained the debate on the issue.

Because of this electoral focus on agrarian distress, electricity supply to agriculture became an important topic. In view of the social unrest that they had caused, the tariff hikes of 2000 became an obvious campaign issue. The Congress Party renewed its promise to provide free power to the farmers. As the analysis by Srinivasulu (2004) shows, this electoral promise carried much more weight in the 2004 elections than it had in the 1999 elections. Critical to this change was the praja prasthana padayatra, or pilgrimage by foot, that the opposition leader, Rajasekhara Reddy, had undertaken in summer 2003. His journey of 1,500 kilometers on foot helped him to establish rapport with the rural poor, to emerge as a charismatic leader of the Congress Party, to boost the morale of the party, and to create a self-image that contrasted starkly with that of Naidu (Srinivasulu 2004). Naidu was known for calling himself the CEO of the state, carrying his laptop everywhere, and traveling by plane. Guarded by heavy security, he had rather limited opportunities for interacting directly with the people.

Naidu’s government also received strong criticism from the left-wing parties, who accused him of the “surrender” of his party to the World Bank,

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