Farmers Movement Archive

Punjab: 'Amarinder Singh non-existent CM, never visited a farm'

CHANDIGARH: Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal, while reacting sharply to Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh's comments, on Friday said it was condemnable that “a non-existent chief minister” who had never visited a farm and chosen to sit out of the 1965 war as a “glorified ADC” was judging sacrifices made by former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal. Sukhbir said Amarinder had failed as a chief minister by refusing to take up the issue of farm bills with the Centre for three months. “Now you have gone running to Delhi, after you were arm-twisted and your son faced imminent action from the Enforcement Directorate,” said the SAD president. He claimed that Amarinder was “directly responsible” for the present-day suffering of Punjab’s farmers. “He accepted the position as member of the seven-member committee which finalised the agri ordinances which have now become laws. He was responsible for not only including the provisions in his party’s election manifesto, but also amended the state APMC Act after coming to power in 2017 in line with the spirit of the agri laws,” he added. Earlier, Sukhbir had asked Amarinder “to stop his efforts to sabotage farmers’ agitation by linking it with threats to national security”. “Clearly, the Indira Gandhi spirit is alive in Amarinder,” said the former deputy CM, adding that the successive Congress governments at the Center had used “same vilification tactics against peaceful Akalis, calling them separatists, terrorists and what not”. He asked Amarinder to share intelligence inputs on the basis of which he had suddenly woken up to the threat to national security and that too “when the farmers’ battle of life and death had reached a crucial stage”. “Amarinder is clearly dancing to someone else’s tune to paint the farmers as national security risk. His so-called ‘warning’ on national security comes immediately after his suspicious meeting with a powerful Union minister,” said the SAD president. He asked if the the CM thought farmers and others in the country “could not see through his conspiratorial role”. Instead of telling the Centre to address farmers’ genuine apprehensions and grievances, the CM has chosen to warn poor farmers against continuing with their peaceful and democratic agitation, he added. “This is clearly a part of the Centre’s design to use him to weaken support for the farmers,” said Sukhbir. Alleging a pattern in Amarinder’s “anti-farmer and anti-Punjab role”, Sukhbir claimed whenever something good for Punjabis in general and the Sikhs in particular was about to happen, he immediately got restless and played the national security card. “He had done exactly the same thing to sabotage Kartarpur Sahib corridor. Fortunately, the great Guru sahiban did not allow his conspiracies to succeed. Even here, he is running against the Guru Sahiban’s message in favour of the poor and the oppressed farmers. The CM is backing the oppressor,” he added.

The Times of India

2020-12-05

Chandigarh