Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Friday asked Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal to answer three key questions surrounding the agriculture laws, accusing him of trying to hijack the farmers’ agitation to push his own party’s agenda.
The Chief Minister said that Mr. Badal should refrain from commenting on the farm laws till he gives satisfactory answers to the three questions, the answers to which every single farmer of Punjab wanted to know.
“Why did Harsimrat Kaur Badal not oppose the farm ordinances when they were first approved by the Union Cabinet, of which she was then a member? Why did Sukhbir not support the State government at the all-party meeting he (Captain Amarinder) had convened to evolve a consensus against the anti-farmer legislations? And why did the Akalis boycott the Vidhan Sabha session in which the other parties (barring BJP) had voted in favour of the resolution on the agricultural laws?”
Captain Amarinder said he had been posing these questions to the Badals for the past several weeks but the Akali leaders had been persistently ignoring them.
Reacting to Mr. Badal’s so-called request to the Prime Minister to talk to farmer organisations and to listen to the voice of the people, the Chief Minister asked why he did not remind the PM of his responsibility towards farmers all those years he was with the BJP.
Direct talks
Earlier Mr. Badal had said Prime Minister Narendra Modi should address the grievances of the farmers by holding direct talks with farmer organisations to come out with a solution which was acceptable to all.
Mr. Badal announced that the SAD would initiate formation of a national pro-farmer front by coordinating with other like mind regional parties surrounding the issue of farm laws and take it to a logical conclusion.
