Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday repealed the three farm laws that Parliament had passed in September last year after which farmers began their protest in states and later shifted the agitation to Delhi borders on November 27 same year.

It is almost a year now and nearly 700 farmers have died since then.

Having adopted a hardened stand on the farm laws for a year, what forced the government to take a U-turn?

The only major reason that one would think of is the upcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. The ruling BJP had initially put up a brave face and asserted that under no circumstances these laws would be repealed. But with the elections fast approaching, a section of the ruling BJP both in Uttar Pradesh and the Centre apprehended huge loses in the polls due to the farmers’ unrest.

More than Punjab, the BJP is worried of Uttar Pradesh that sends 80 lawmakers to the Lok Sabha or the Lower House of Parliament. Around 90 of the 403 seats in the country’s politically important state come from the western part and that is dominated largely by those involved in farming. The ongoing farmers’ agitation was expected to result in big loss for the BJP in western Uttar Pradesh.

The BJP had won majority of these 90 seats in the 2017 assembly elections but now the situation had changed so drastically that its leaders were not even allowed entry in many villages in the region.

In Punjab, the BJP has been riding piggy back on the Shiromani Akali Dal till they parted ways on the farm laws. The party is now banking on making some inroads in the border state with the help of former Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh who was removed from the post by the Congress in September this year. He has since announced a new party and openly declared that his party would have an alliance with the BJP and breakaway factions of the Akali Dal.

It will be interesting to see how much damage control the BJP would able to do in the two states by repealing these laws.