Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Thursday said that Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh was purposely delaying bringing in legislation to negate the Agri laws, which were detrimental to the future of the farmers of Punjab, by rejecting an appeal made in this context by all farm organization of the State.
Stating that there was more to the refusal, the SAD President said, “Capt Amarinder Singh is again asking for time to bring the legislation even though the SAD was the first to make this demand more than ten days back. We had asked the chief minister to call a special session and bring in legislation making the entire State a single market yard. The farm organizations are also making a similar demand.”
Sukhbir Singh Badal said that in keeping with the fixed match the Chief Minister was playing on the issue, the latter outright rejected the SAD’s suggestion around one week back. He said subsequently Captain Amarinder came under pressure following the SAD’s historic Kisan March and baulked under the weight of the ‘rosh’ of the farmers and announced he would call a special session after all.
“Now when the farmer organizations have tried to pin him down, he is again trying to escape by rejecting the ample time of one week given to him by the farm organizations. All this points to the fact that the Chief Minister is simply playing out a fixed match and has no interest whatsoever in ensuring the rights of farmers of the State are protected at the earliest,” Sukhbir Badal said.
The SAD president said that the SAD on its part would force the Chief Minister to listen to the voice of the farmers. “We will compel this anti-farmer government to not only repeal its amended APMC Act of 2017 but also bring in legislation to make the entire State one ‘Mandi” so that the three Agri marketing laws are no longer applicable in Punjab,” Badal added.
On the other hand, CM Captain Amarinder Singh said that if anyone is playing a fixed match, it is the SAD, which continues to act at the behest of the BJP, and in the interests of the NDA government at the Centre, even after ostensibly quitting it. He said that the latest incident of the Akalis defending the BKU (Lakhowal) decision to withdraw their writ petition against the farm laws from the Supreme Court was its fresh example.
The Chief Minister also derided Sukhbir’s remark that the Akalis will compel his government to do anything, considering that, by their admission, they had failed to persuade their government at the Centre not to bring in the farm laws. He pointed out that SAD’s former ally, the BJP, had already publicly declared that the Akalis had fully supported the legislation from Day 1.
Pointing to the SAD chief’s remark that he (CM) had rejected Sukhbir’s suggestion on calling a special session for state legislation to negate the farm laws, Captain Amarinder said there was no question of accepting or rejecting a suggestion made after he had categorically announced that he was exploring that option.
“In any case, who is Sukhbir to suggest the state government after he openly refused to support us in rejecting the farm ordinances during the all-party meeting, and asked his MLAs to stay away from the Vidhan Sabha session at which we passed a resolution against them?’ the Chief Minister asked.
He also ridiculed Sukhbir’s allegation of the state government deliberately delaying bringing in state legislation to counter the Centre’s farm laws, saying that as a Chief Minister he was doing what was in the best interests of the farming community.