Congress leader Amarinder Singh on Monday suggested Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to stage dharna, along with his ministers, outside the Prime Minister’s Office to press for farmer’s issue if Narendra Modi was not giving him time.
The Congress Deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, after visiting grain markets of Patiala and Khanna, said: “If Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not giving time to Mr. Badal, he should better stage a dharna instead of loitering around and issuing hollow threats to seek his attention.”
The former Punjab Chief Minister visited grain market along with along with the Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha, Sunil Jakhar, senior leaders Laal Singh, Preneet Kaur and MLAs, Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, Gurkirat Kotli and Hardayal Kambhoj, and talked to farmers and asked about the problems they were facing.
He said the farmers told him that they were not getting any payment and instead they (the farmers) were given receipts of their produce on plain papers without any assurance as when they will get the payments.
He recalled that when he was the Chief Minister he had led a dharna outside the office of the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to flag his attention towards the problems in lifting of the crops by the central agencies and hike in the Minimum Support Price.
“But Mr. Badal wants to have the cake and eat it too,” he said pointing out that on the one hand he was conveying that he was “not happy with the NDA government” while at the same time he was not prepared to withdraw his daughter-in-law from the Union ministry.
Asserting that Mr. Badal had failed to convince the central government about giving relief and relaxation to farmers in Punjab for the damaged wheat crop, he pointed out that Haryana government had managed to get massive relief and hundred per cent relaxation for the damaged crops there. Mr. Singh said by trying to shift the entire blame on the central government, Mr. Badal was trying to “escape the responsibility”.
“Both the central as well as the State governments are to be blamed for the current plight of farmers and Mr. Badal in no way can claim that he is not responsible,” he emphasised.
On the reports of Badal government trying to play down the number of farmers’ suicides in Punjab, he said, this was so characteristic of Mr. Badal to deny everything and he was doing the same in case of the farmers’ suicides. - PTI
