Farmers Movement Archive

Amarinder Singh: Sukhbir Singh Badal's U-turns on farm laws show lack of moral scruples:

CHANDIGARH: Accusing the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) of yet another U-turn on the farm laws, Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh on Friday lashed out at Sukhbir Singh Badal for “repeatedly compromising the interests of the farmers” with his “brazen lies and petty political games”. In rejecting the state’s amendment Bills, which his party had backed in the Vidhan Sabha, Sukhbir had “not just exposed his lack of moral scruples but had also echoed the recent statements of various BJP leaders”, said Capt Amarinder. It showed a clear collusion between SAD and BJP, suggesting that the entire drama of Harsimrat’s resignation from the Union cabinet and the withdrawal of the Akalis from NDA was nothing but a total farce aimed at befooling the farmers and sabotaging their fight against the central laws, he claimed. “First you actively and wholeheartedly supported the Centre’s malicious Farm Ordinances, then quit the NDA calling their Bills anti-farmer, then indulged in a whole lot of political drama through protest rallies and yatras across the state, then openly voted for the state government’s amendment Bills, and are now rejecting the same,” the CM pointed out, citing the sequence of Akalis’ actions. He refuted Sukhbir’s argument that the Akalis did not get the time to study the state government’s Bills, quipping that this was not possible considering the massive legal and other infrastructure at the disposal of SAD. He took a jibe at Sukhbir’s claim that his party MLAs voted for the Bills without properly going through them, saying, “This might explain why the Akalis have been stamping their approval on all kinds of anti-people, anti-India and anti-Punjab legislations of the Union government over the past 6 years.” He claimed that the SAD chief was blatantly lying with regard to the resolution passed in the assembly. Amarinder said nowhere was it mentioned that the Punjab government was committed to declaring the entire state as principal market area (PMA), as claimed by Sukhbir. “Are you trying to say that your MLAs had trouble reading and understanding the 370-word resolution, of which around 100 words were just names of Ordinances/Acts?,” the CM said. In any case, he said, what was important was not declaring the state as PMA but to protect the MSP. The state government had, after taking legal and expert opinion, chosen the best method to do so, but the Akalis seemed stuck on a particular methodology, he added. Even if the entire state was sought to be converted into PMA, such approach would not have been free from the requirement of presidential consent, he claimed.

The Times of India

2020-10-24

Chandigarh