Farmers Movement Archive

AAP MP Bhagwant Mann asks Punjab CM, Harsimrat to come clean on farm laws

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) state president and Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann on Tuesday challenged former Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal and chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh to come clean and make public their statements regarding the three farm laws made in the cabinet meeting and high-powered committee.Clarifying his position on the Essential Commodities Act by disclosing the minutes of the parliamentary standing committee on food consumer affairs and public distribution, Mann accused the rival parties of creating confusion among the people by spreading lies about the AAP to discredit it. “People of Punjab understand their tricks,” he said, reading out from the statement made by him in the parliamentary standing committee meeting against the farm laws.The AAP leader said this Act would give impetus to hoarding and was a conspiracy to remove onions and tomatoes from the list of essential commodities and make life difficult for the poor. “With the implementation of this law, hoarders will stockpile goods and later sell them at exorbitant prices. The government should keep such essentials,” he said, citing the example of potatoes.Mann said the AAP was opposing these “black laws” from day one, from the streets to Parliament. He asked that Harsimrat should also make public the proceedings of the meeting of June 5, 2020, when these bills came to the Union cabinet meeting and she supported them.Harsimrat hits back at Sangrur MPMeanwhile, Harsimrat Badal on Tuesday said the AAP MP’s statement on the parliamentary standing committee was “a resounding self-goal and an unequivocal admission” that he and his party did not oppose the controversial anti-farmer bills in the meeting or in the Parliament.The Akali leader said the masters of doublespeak have been caught in the act and themselves provided the most irrefutable proof of how meekly Bhagwant Mann and AAP surrendered to the BJP on the three Acts while publicly pretending to oppose the same. “They (AAP) have obviously over-reached their own cunning limits and unwittingly clinched the case against themselves,” she said in a press release here.The SAD leader said that in the entire audio and minutes released by Mann, there is not a single word of protest or opposition or rejection of the said Acts nor can he be heard voicing his own or his party’s protest against the damage the said laws would inflict on the farmers. “The only thing you can hear is Mann meekly and most obsequiously seeking mere clarifications on the implications of the Essential Commodities Act. He is virtually cringing before the chairman while he pretends to roar in public to befool the masses,” she said.

Hindustan Times

24-03-2021

Chandigarh