Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
* Bajwa exposes Badal’s double speak on farmers
Chandigarh, The Punjab Congress President, Mr Partap Singh Bajwa, today lashed out at the Chief Minister Mr Parkash Singh Badal for cheating the people and said his alliance partner BJP’s so called pro-farmer credentials had already been completely exposed not only with regard to the land acquisition act but also on the issue of hike in minimum support prices of the farm produce.
“One fails to understand with what face you term yesterday’s farmers rally as political gimmick that was organised to protest the land acquisition act amendments as your own party had announced the decision to oppose the bill in the Lok Sabha. Your party had issued a detailed press note recommending more than a dozen suggestions. However, the very next day, your MPs unashamedly supported the same bill in the Lok Sabha. Can you share with the people whether Union Minister for Food Processing Harsimrat Kaur Badal had registered her protest when the issue came up in the cabinet or not. You cannot befool the people all the time and on every issue”, he told Mr Badal.
He advised Mr Badal to propose to his government at the centre to replicate the Punjab land act which he was describing as the best model in the country. “You need not tell us the merit of the Punjab legislation but convince the Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi about it. Why are you reluctant to meet him these days”, he asked.
He reminded Mr Badal that the hike in the MSP has been much higher proportionately during the Congress regime as against the NDA regime and figure were there for him to compare. He said it was Badal and his party that had promised in the manifesto to get the MSP fixed on the Swaminathan committee formula. He wanted to know why his government at the centre had now backtracked from it and what was he doing to protect the interests of the farmers now. He could not go on berating the Congress at the time when his own party was part of the government at the centre. The people wanted to know what he was doing now when the Modi government had ditched the farmers.
He said Mr Badal should come out specifically even one decision of this government that was pro-farmer and pro-farm workers. He pointed out that it was only now that Punjab had started feeling the pinch of discrimination and that too when Mr Badal’s own government was ruling at the centre in which his daughter-in-law was the Minister.
Badal also failed to get any compensation for the farmers till yet.
