Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday hit out at his Punjab counterpart Captain Amrinder Singh for alleging that the Delhi government has passed the three farmer ordinances in Delhi, despite knowing that these three laws are passed by the Centre and it is not the prerogative of any State to implement or not implement such laws.
Mr. Kejriwal asked Captain Singh not to indulge in “dirty politics” on farmers’ protests and added that that the allegations made by Captain Singh may be coming from his friendship with the BJP or he may be under pressure from the Centre to do so.
Mr. Kejriwal added that he was also under tremendous pressure from the Centre to grant permission for the use of nine stadiums in Delhi to act as “jails” for the farmers, but he did not succumb to the pressure. “Since the time we refused to convert the nine stadiums in Delhi into temporary jails, the Central government is very upset with me. They had a plan of putting the farmers into these jails as soon as the farmers reach Delhi, and our refusal to convert these stadiums into jails have upset them,” Mr. Kejriwal said.
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He also said that Captain Singh had many chances to stop these farm bills as he was a member of committee to formulate and examine these bills, but did not stop these by raising objections in the committee itself.
“Why did you not intimate people about how the Centre is trying to bring in these black laws? The farmers of Punjab want to know why you did not stop these farm bills,” Mr. Kejriwal asked.
In his press statement, Mr. Kejriwal requested everybody to support the farmers. “When some call the farmers ‘terrorists’, ‘anti-nationals’ for protesting, I cannot imagine what the soldiers on the border must be going through, whose parents are being called terrorists. We all have to decide whether we are with the farmers or with people who are calling them ‘terrorists’,” Mr. Kejriwal said. He appealed to the Centre to accept all the demands of the farmers and provide a legal guarantee of MSP.
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The Delhi Congress, meanwhile, hit out at the Delhi government, saying that instead of extending its support to the farmers’ cause, it was playing a devious double-role, as on one hand it was shedding crocodile tears for the farmers and on the other, it has quietly notified one of the three farm laws it opposed on November 23 — the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance 2020.