Farmers Movement Archive

‘Traitor’, ‘Liar’: Anurag, Bittu spar over farm laws in Lok Sabha

Ludhiana: The Lok Sabha saw a Monday-night verbal spat between local Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu and BJP’s minister of state for finance Anurag Thakur on the issue of farm laws. Bittu started it by saying that hundreds of MPs had claimed to be farmers and the minister was one. Thakur interrupted to ask him to prove his statement that the new farm bills had a clause to scrap the mandis. “Where’s it written?” he said, which made Bittu burst out in Punjabi: “Ehi kuchh kisana nal kar rhe ho, taa hi juttian pai rhia ne. Je kisana de virudh bolda, lai li swad fir, tu Jalandhar da ho ke Punjab nal gaddari kar rea (You do this to the farmers, that’ why they kick you. Speak against the farmers and see what happens. Despite being from Jalandhar, you betray Punjab).” Thakur kept asking Bittu to show the written clause. He said: “Punjab ke sansad Punjab ke kisano ko gumrah kar ke aye pehle, aaj fir desh ko gumrah kar rahe hain. Ye abhi tak ye nahi bata paye ki kaha likha hai mandi band hogi. Inko apni chinta hai, apni rajniti ki chinta hai. Ye kisan ke kandhe par bandook rakh ke chala rahe hain (The Punjab MP misguided the Punjab farmers earlier and today he misguides the country. He still fails to explain where’s written that the mandis will be shut. He cares only about his politics and is shooting his gun from the farmers’ shoulder).” Later, Thakur tweeted a video of the spat, posting: “Congress MP caught lying in parliament, Fails to answer which clause…” Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar re-tweeted it with this message: “Bittu tried to misguide but his lies were exposed by our minister.”

The Times of India

2021-02-11

Chandigarh