Farmers Movement Archive

Show proof of SAD support: Sukhbir Singh Badal to BJP

AMRITSAR: SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Thursday dared BJP to show the evidence of his party’s endorsement of the three farm bills in the Parliament, as claimed by the former alliance partner. Talking to the media before leading the Kisan March from Akal Takht to Chandigarh, Sukhbir said, “Show our signature, show me. It’s easy to say.” His reaction came in reply to a query that former Punjab BJP president Shwait Malik had claimed that SAD(B) endorsed the farm bills in the Parliament. “Right from the beginning we have been saying that we were not asked, no meeting was held on farm legislations. We were sure that our concerns for the farmers would be included in the bills, but when that didn’t happen, we resigned from the Cabinet and parted our ways,” he said. Denying that the party was agitating for the farmers only to keep its vote bank intact, the SAD(B) president said his father Parkash Singh Badal had spent around 16 years in jail for the cause of farmers, so they could not even think of doing politics on such a sensitive issue. “We are not like other political parties,” he added. Talking about the Kisan March, he said according to the traditions of Khalsa Panth, they had arrived here to pay obeisance at Golden Temple and Akal Takht to seek Guru’s blessings before beginning the march, which would culminate at the Governor House in Chandigarh and they would hand over a memorandum to him. “We have appealed to the Centre, especially to the President, to convene sessions of both Houses and quash these ‘Kale Kanun’ (black laws), which are detrimental to the interests of farmers,” he said. Asked about the ongoing struggle of farm bodies, Sukhbir said, “One and one makes 11. There should be a united struggle to show our strength. We are ready to stand till the last in the struggle, but there should be some result in the favour of farmers.”

The Times of India

2020-10-02

Chandigarh