At an election rally at Nagaur in Rajasthan last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a veiled dig at Congress president Rahul Gandhi. "Kuch log aise hain jinko maloom nahi hai ki chane ka paudha hota hai ya ped, jo moong aur masoor mein farak nahi samajhte vo aaj desh ko kisaani sikhane ke liye ghoom rahe hain," he said. It roughly translates to: some people who do not know whether there is a chickpea plant or tree, or can differentiate between moong and masoor are now teaching farming to people.The good show by the Congress in the assembly elections has proved that farmers refused to buy PM Modi's argument. This is the key takeaway from these elections for PM Modi — the farmers don't care about how much Rahul Gandhi knows about farming but would judge what all PM Modi has done for them.The Congress had made farm distress its main plank in the assembly elections. It promised farm loan waivers in its manifestoes. At a rally in Hyderabad, Rahul Gandhi even hinted at waiving farm loans across the country if his party assumed power at the Centre in 2019. Recent fall in onion prices put the farmer issue centrestage during the election. An onion-grower from Maharashtra who had to sell his produce for little over Rs 1 per kg sent his earnings to PM Modi to mark his protest. He was among the handful of `progressive farmers' selected by the Union agriculture ministry for an interaction with then US president Barack Obama when he visited India in 2010.The incident can be symbolic of the farmer love for the BJP going weak. It seems Narendra Modi government's promise to double farm incomes by 2022 has stopped impressing the farmers. Increasing farm distress is alienating farmers from the BJP if these elections are any indication. Farm output grew 3.8 per cent year-on-year in the September quarter compared with 5.3 per cent the previous quarter. Tumbling food prices have adversely impacted farmers, bringing down rural incomes which leads to reduced sales of consumer durables and other products, thus triggering a deep impact on the economy. Recently, farmers from across the country marched to Parliament in Delhi protesting against various problems that plague the sector.In the Lok Sabha elections, PM Modi will not only be pitted against a confidant and aggressive Rahul Gandhi, buoyed by the Congress win in a few major states, but possibly also the angry farmer, unless the Modi government takes some drastic steps to support agricultural sector.