Farmers Movement Archive

Delhi: AAP slams Centre for being ‘anti-farmer’

NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party on Sunday demanded that Union home minister Amit Shah resolve the issues by listening to them immediately. Senior AAP functionaries also slammed Shah for campaigning for the Hyderabad municipal election at a time when thousands of farmers are protesting at Delhi’s border points. Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said the party, under the leadership of chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, was standing with the farmers. “We will fight shoulder to shoulder with the farmers. We support the demands made by them and we welcome these protesting farmers to Delhi,” he said, adding that Shah must permit them to protest wherever they want. AAP chief spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj said lakhs of farmers were waiting to get a response from Shah, but he was campaigning for the Hyderabad municipal corporation elections. “In this serious situation, the home minister of our country is not in Delhi, but in Hyderabad and he is holding a press conference regarding the issues related to the Hyderabad municipality,” Bharadwaj said. “I believe that after Independence in the history of India, we have never witnessed such a home minister who is not dealing with such a serious issue of the farmers, but is campaigning for a municipality election,” he said. “Till yesterday, he was telling the farmers that because of their protest, Covid-19 cases will rise in Delhi. But just a few minutes ago, in his press conference, the home minister said there was massive participation of people in his roadshow,” Bharadwajj claimed. “BJP sees the threat of corona in Delhi when the farmers are protesting, but they are doing massive roadshows at Hyderabad where they don’t care about the pandemic,” Singh said. “When the Union home minister can ignore the demands of the lakhs of protesting farmers and go to Hyderabad for a municipality election campaign, then it becomes clear that India now has an anti-farmer and an intolerant and irresponsible home minister,” he said. “Today, our farmers are on the roads, they have left their homes, farms and villages and are marching towards Delhi... Because the Central government has passed three farm bills that are against the farmers,” AAP spokesperson Atishi said, addressing a press conference on Sunday. “Our farmers, who build our nation with their blood and sweat, who are our providers, who feed the nation, want us and the government to listen to them. And our government is so intolerant towards thousands of farmers who are sitting on the border of Delhi that they are not even ready to talk to them,” she said. Addressing a press conference on Sunday, AAP spokesperson Raghav Chadha said, “Today, I am going to keep certain facts in front of you, which proves that Captain Amrinder Singh is a BJP chief minister. This friendship of Captain Amrinder Singh and PM Narendra Modi has led to the duping and destruction of the nation's farmers,” he alleged. “They are making all efforts to put a full stop to this movement,” he said. Chadha claimed Amarinder and the PM were close acquaintances, the farm laws that were passed by Modi government were mentioned by Congress in their 2019 manifesto and that the Punjab government stood by these laws when these were being brought in by the Centre.

The Times of India

2020-11-30

Delhi