Farmers Movement Archive

Punjab: SAD will reverse Centre’s laws, Captain Amarinder Singh just tricked us, claims Sukhbir Singh Badal

CHANDIGARH: Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal claims that when his party comes to power in Punjab, it will declare the entire state a principal market to nullify “Modi’s farm laws” and repeal the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act, 2017, enacted by the state’s Congress government. After his party’s core-committee meeting, Sukhbir said here on Thursday: “We have been demanding to not only continue the system of assured minimum support price (MSP) but also extend it to all 22 listed crops. When we form the government, we will convert this demand into decision.” In his first reaction after the Punjab Vidhan Sabha passed four bills to blunt the Centre’s three new agri-marketing laws, Sukhbir said that the opposition parties were shocked to see how chief minister Amarinder Singh had “played a trick on Punjab by betraying the sabha’s unanimous resolution”, which had rejected the central laws outright and committed the state government to declaring Punjab a principal market zone. The SAD president said: “The special assembly had also rejected the 2017 APMC Act as a photocopy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s anti-farmer Acts. But the bills which were the Amarinder government brought subsequently carried none of these provisions. Amarinder is guilty of misleading and betraying the house.” Accusing the chief minister of “telling brazen lies about farmers on the sacred floor of the vidhan sabha”, he said even the farm unions to whom Amarinder had shown the first draft had dismissed the final bills as “tutte futte” (broken version). Alleging that the BJP and Amarinder were on the same side against farmers, Sukhbir said: “He (Amarinder) thrust the bills before us just minutes from introduction, giving us no time to study, just as he had done with the 2004 river water bill, which has brought no result.” Referring to Amarinder’s statement about his willingness to resign if the Centre imposed its will, Sukhbir quipped: “Those who were sincere about resigning to fight for the farmers have resigned already, while Captain Sahib is only boasting. An Akali minister quit the Union cabinet and she doesn’t boast.”

The Times of India

2020-10-23

Chandigarh