Number of Indian Americans in elected offices not reflective of their population: Kamala Harris
CHANDIGARH, October 9: Congress Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha Capt Amarinder Singh today sought a probe into the negligence by the Punjab government in taking action on the advancing warning about whitefly attack on cotton by the Central Integrated Pest Management Centre (CIPC), Jalandhar to the state.
He also condemned the attempts by the state government to give political colour to the farmers’ agitation regretting that instead of recognising the severity of the crisis the Chief Minister and his Deputy Chief Minister son were attributing political motives to the protesting farmers. He warned that after the cotton growers, it will be the turn of paddy farmers as there are no proper procurement arrangements and he had been warning about it time and again.
The former Chief Minister disclosed that the CIPC had sent an advance report to the state government way back in July, when the white fly pest attack was in its formative stage only and could have been tackled completely and effectively, warning about the attack and the damage it could cause, but nobody seemed to have taken note of the warning at that time.
He demanded that responsibility must be fixed as why the report was ignored. “Had the government taken action on the report, much of the cotton crop could have been saved”, he pointed out, while asserting that suspending and imprisoning one odd official will not serve any purpose as the final authority is that of the minister. “Instead”, he added, “they are all busy in defending their minister Tota Singh giving him clean chit much before the inquiry has been completed”.
Capt Amarinder had a dig at the state government claims that Haryana and Rajasthan farmers had suffered more losses than Punjab farmers and still they were not protesting. “Does this government want our farmers to suffer as enormously as those in the neighbouring states that only then it will wake up?” he asked.
Referring to the much touted claims of the state government about having announced Rs 600 crores for providing compensation to the effected cotton growers Capt Amarinder asked, “let us know the names and addresses of the farmers who have been compensated by this government with this amount”. He said, it was a mere joke as some farmers had been issued compensation cheques as low as Rs 140 (one hundred forty only).
