Chandigarh
Punjab Cabinet Minister and Senior Congress Leader Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa disproved the claim of Aam Aadmi Party Chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal that farmers in Delhi have been paid more than the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for their crops. He questioned that if the Delhi government had procured the crop at a higher price than the MSP, then why paddy from Bihar, UP and Madhya Pradesh reached Punjab for sale.
S. Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa further said that during the procurement of paddy, trucks carrying paddy from other states for sale in Punjab were seized by the farmers and police at the Punjab border. He questioned Kejriwal that the total production of paddy in Delhi would be less than even one block of Punjab. He quipped, “why farmers from other states did not go to Delhi to sell paddy from their states especially when you were buying paddy at a higher price than MSP?”
S. Randhawa said that Kejriwal had started his politics with lies and by making misleading false statements on burning issues, he reached the chair of Delhi Chief Minister. He said that the politics of taking advantage of the farmers was based on lies and it was only by misleading the people that he became the Chief Minister.
The Minister further said that in fact Kejriwal was a mask set up by the BJP which was using its bosses’ orders to weaken the peasant struggle. He said that with the issuance of anti-farmer law by the Delhi government on November 23, the cat has come out of the bag. He appealed to the farmers’ organizations to beware of the nefarious designs of the BJP’s B team. He said that Kejriwal, who was sitting on a dharna, chose to hide himself behind an excuse that he had been kept under house arrest. The question that now arises is why he has never been placed under house arrest before and now when the time came to stage a dharna in front of the Prime Minister’s residence in the interest of the farmers, he is making lame excuses. On the other hand, the Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh had not allowed any harm come to farmers during their protests in Punjab and is still putting pressure on the Center to withdraw these black laws as soon as possible in the interest of the farmers.
Challenging the Aam Aadmi Party MP from Sangrur, S. Randhawa said that comedian-turned-politician Bhagwant Mann, popularly known as ‘Peg’want Mann, if truly cares for the farming community, should have sacrificed his alcoholic addiction for a few days and staged a dharna at Jantar Mantar against the Union Government. He said that if Bhagwant Mann, who used to reach Gurdwara Sahib, religious functions, cremation ceremonies and Parliament in a state of intoxication, managed to stage a dharna at Jantar Mantar for a few days without alcohol, it would at least convince people that he can control himself.
Urging the Aam Aadmi Party’s Punjab leadership not to follow Kejriwal as the BJP’s ‘B’ team, Senior Congress leader said that Kejriwal was a part of a conspiracy hatched by the BJP with some select industrialists to wipe out the opposition from the country. He said that Kejriwal had initiated these laws in 2016 at the behest of BJP and so many institutions by advocating investment of big corporations in agriculture through a tweet at a time when there was no talk of farm bills. Can’t you see Kejriwal repeatedly taking anti-Punjab stand on water, paddy straw and other issues and now hastily issuing notification for implementation of black agriculture laws. Have the narrow political benefits outweighed the interests of farmers and Punjab for you, questioned S. Randhawa.
