CHANDIGARH: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has appealed to farmers whose land has been acquired at low rates by the Punjab government to support the party’s protest march to chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi’s residence on Wednesday.
SAD senior vice-president Daljit Singh Cheema said party workers would assemble at Gurdwara Amb Sahib in Mohali on Wednesday morning and would proceed to the chief minister’s residence from there. “The purpose is to highlight the injustice being done to 2lakh farmers across 19 districts of the state whose lands are being acquired for peanuts for road projects under the Bharat Mala project,” he added.
Cheema said SAD, on its part, held a meeting with representatives of the Punjab Pradesh Road Kisan Sangharsh Committee, which had been spearheading the movement to secure a fair compensation for affected farmers. “The party has also met farmers whose lands have been acquired at very low rates. We are of the firm belief that there is no justification for this and the party will launch a statewide agitation to ensure farmers get a fair price for their land as they did earlier during the erstwhile SAD-led government,” he added.
Invite farmers for talks: Sukhbir to PM
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Tuesday requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to send a personal invite to the farmers for talks without preconditions and revoke the three agri-marketing laws.
Claiming that the farmers of Punjab and Haryana had managed to keep Monday’s ‘Bharat Bandh’ peaceful, Sukhbir said it should be enough to prove to the central government that the country stood behind the “annadata” (food provider). The SAD president requested the PM to also call a special session of Parliament to revoke the contentious laws in order to end the stalemate. He said: “Had the government heeded the SAD’s advice when we not only voted against the bills in Parliament but also quit the cabinet and broke our alliance with the BJP, the situation would have been different. We continue to support to the farmers’ cause.”
