Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Chandigarh, September 30: The Punjab Congress President Mr Partap Singh Bajwa today lambasted the Union Food Processing Minister Mrs Harsimrat Kaur Badal for her shockingly anti-farmer statement and called upon the Chief Minister Mr Parkash Singh Badal to withdraw her from the cabinet.
Reacting strongly to her statement that the damage to the cotton crop in Punjab was a natural calamity and hence the state did not need financial package from the centre for the farmers, Mr Bajwa said her statement was not only repugnant and travesty of facts but also manifested true face of the Badal family.
“The farmers have been sitting on dharna in Bathinda for the last more than fifteen days and she represents this constituency. The situation is so critical that one of the farmers even committed suicide on the spot. It is outrageous that rather than taking up their cause, she had played a cruel joke on them. In case the people in village after village are not allowing to enter their areas, they are fully justified”, he added.
The PPCC chief such was the situation in Bathinda that she went to Bhikhi at two functions but maintained distance from the distressed people for whom had done nothing and had now come out with her anti-farmer thinking which was just unthinkable.
He said the agitation by the farmers was snowballing and it was because of the deepening crisis compounded by the crop loss. Instead of talking to them to about the relief package, she had just hurt their feelings to the extreme.
He called upon Mr Badal to clarify his stand on the statement made by the Union minister from Punjab on merit forgetting that she was his daughter-in-law as her statement had done immense harm as the Modi government was already in no mood to come to the rescue of Punjab and now her statement had provided just another excuse to deny the farmers and relief package.
He demanded that Mr Badal must withdraw her from the Narendra Modi cabinet while at the same time, providing adequate relief to the farmers as the amount announced by the government was far less as compared to the loss they had suffered.
