Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Saturday said the strange and senseless recent remarks of Sukhbir Singh Badal showed that the Akali leader had completely lost the political narrative, causing him to fumble for words and desperate to find a way out of the pathetic situation in which his party finds itself over the farmers’ issue.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief seemed to have been jolted into desperation by the entire Farm Laws saga, which had completely exposed the double standards of the Akalis, said the Chief Minister, adding that Sukhbir clearly had no idea what he was talking about.
Capt Amarinder was reacting to Sukhbir’s remarks on the easing of Rs Rail Roko’ by the Kisan Unions and his suggestion that the state government should have taken SAD’s advice before coming out with the amendment Bills in the Vidhan Sabha.
Sukhbir has accused the Chief Minister of colluding with the Centre to get the blockade of the farmers lifted.
Ridiculing Sukhbir’s suggestion on going to Akalis for advice, the Chief Minister quipped that “it seems the NDA government at the Centre had taken the advice of their then allies, the Akalis, in the matter of the anti-farmer, anti-federal and anti-Constitutional farm laws.”
That would explain why they messed it up so badly and took the unilateral decision to impose laws that are clearly designed to ruin the farmers, he added.
Terming the Akali president’s allegation of collusion between him and the BJP as ludicrous, Capt Amarinder said Sukhbir appears to be in a state of mental despair and denial, which is leading him to make such nonsensical remarks. “Does Sukhbir really believe that I would lead my party to political suicide with such an act?” asked the Chief Minister.
The only rational explanation for such preposterous comments would be that the SAD leader had lost all sense of proportion out of sheer desperation at his and his party’s political oblivion, which was no longer a distant possibility but a concrete fact, he added.
The Chief Minister also mocked Sukhbir over the latter’s demand for him to “come clean” on the subject of the state amendment Bills, aimed at negating the devastating effect of the central laws on the farming community. “On the one hand you complain when I tell the legislators frankly in the House that the Governor/President may or may not give consent to the Bills, and on the other you say I’m not being honest,” he remarked, asking the SAD chief to make up his mind on where he and his party stand.
“The farmers are sick and tired of your games,” Capt Amarinder told Sukhbir, adding that it was SAD which was feeling the heat of the farming community – the reason why they are running around in circles on the Centre’s laws and the State’s Bills. He reiterated his demand for the Akalis to explain to the people why they backed the central legislations if these were anti-farmer and whey they backed the state’s Bills in the Vidhan Sabha if they found them useless.
What his government had done with these Bills despite the risks and dangers involved was many times more than what the SAD had done as part of NDA’s Union Government in six years, quipped the Chief Minister. He added that this was probably the reason for Sukhbir getting so flustered and frustrated, and causing the Akali leader to lie even more brazenly and shamelessly than he usually does.
SUKHBIR BADAL POSES FOUR QUESTIONS TO CM
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) President Sukhbir Singh Badal on Saturday put four questions to chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh including a challenge to tell if had annulled the central agri-marketing laws and when the new Bills passed in the Vidhan Sabha would come into being.
These two queries, which are part of the four question set, also ask the chief minister to tell farmers if the Bills moved by him in the Vidhan Sabha had made msp a statutory right of farmers. The fourth and final question asks the chief minister to tell if he had guaranteed government purchase of all 24 crops falling under the MSP regime.
Stating that these four questions were being asked by everyone, Badal asked the chief minister not to play games with people of Punjab in league with the centre. “You know your Bills will not be approved by the central government. You have not even annulled the amended APMC Act of 2017 which is a copy of the central Agri Acts. We know you have no straight answers but still we give you fifteen days to tell Punjabis why you defrauded them in this manner and why you are hand in glove with the centre in destroying their future”.
Asserting that Capt Amarinder Singh was pushing Punjab into turmoil, the SAD President said “the only solution was declaring the entire State as one Mandi (principal market yard) which would have automatically negated implementation of the central Agri Acts in Punjab. But you did not take this suggestion because you did not have any intention of securing the rights of Punjabis. You chose to enter into a deal with Delhi and passed wishy-washy Bills with the sole intention of sabotaging the ongoing farmer agitation and getting the ‘rail roko’ agitation lifted”.
Badal also requested farmer organizations to ask the chief minister why he had refused to guarantee government procurement and why he did not take them into confidence before moving Bills which concerned their future. He said the chief minister’s lie that he had consulted farmer organizations had been caught out already. “It is also known that Capt Amarinder Singh was forced to call the special assembly session under pressure after having rejected the demand earlier.
Now Punjabis want the chief minister to come clean. Give us straight answers to the straight questions we have put on behalf of the people. Don’t try to obfuscate and confuse the issue with foul mouthed evasive replies. Give answers to the people or else it will be proven beyond doubt that you backstabbed the annadaata”, Badal added.
