Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday accused the Congress of betraying farmers on loan waiver and shielding and promoting those involved in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
“Earlier the Congress fooled people in the name of Garibi Hatao and now it is deceiving the farming community in the name of waiving loans. They have failed to keep their promises,” he said at a BJP-Shiromani Akali Dal rally at Gurdaspur in Punjab.
“In Karnataka, loans of farmers are not being waived. In Punjab, the truth about loan waiver is that in one-and-a-half years, only ₹3,400 crore was waived. This is as per the State government’s own documents. They have failed to keep their promise. How many years will they take to waive loans. Is it a five-year plan for them,” he said.
“The Congress was involved in shielding and rewarding those involved in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots,” he claimed.
Kartarpur corridor
The NDA government took a historic decision to build a ‘corridor’ from Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur to the Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan, he said.
Akali Dal president and former Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal said the long-pending issues of the Sikh community had been resolved by the Modi-led NDA government.
“The NDA government established a SIT [special investigation team] to investigate the 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases and even reopened them. This step had already resulted in the conviction of two persons within one year,” he said.
Mr. Badal hit out at Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, accusing him of going back on his promise of complete loan waiver.
