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Chandigarh, February 22: The Punjab Congress Legislature Party chief Mr Charanjit Singh Channi today proposed thread-bare special discussion on the issue of providing reservation to the Jats in the forthcoming budget session of the state Vidhan Sabha.
In a statement, Mr Channi said the agrarian crisis in the state had been deepening over the years and the same was getting reflected in increasing incidence of suicides by the distressed farmers, especially in the Malwa belt. Moreover, the pauperization of the peasantry had been acting as a push factor. The land holdings had been getting smaller and smaller over the period. He said farming had become unsustainable for small and marginal farmers.
Mr Channi pointed out that majority of those committing suicide were those owning less than five acres of land and they did not have any alternate source of survival. He said besides discussing and debating steps to make farming profitable for the small farmers, the issue of reservation should be discussed as the two were closely interlinked. The reservation issue had arisen mainly because of shrinkage of job market and farming turning unprofitable.
Channi made it clear that the present quotas could not be disturbed and modalities should be worked out after evolving consensus but without tinkering with the present system.
Mr Channi said the issue of reservation for Jats was now coming up almost in all the states in the North and as such, this was the high time that it was discussed seriously in the forthcoming Assembly session. He also stressed that special time should be allotted for this discussion with reservation as the agenda keeping in view the deepening farm crisis.
He said the Congress would approach the Speaker for special discussion on this sensitive issue before the situation got out of hand like in the neighboring state of Haryana.
