A day after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) walked out of the all-party meeting to once again expose its double standards on the farmers’ issue, Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Wednesday said the people of Punjab should not expect anything better from a party whose chief was on record touting the Farm Laws as the most revolutionary step in the Agriculture sector in 70 years.
The act of the walk-out had not only shown the party in its true colours but also bared their lie on Arvind Kejriwal’s video, which showed the Delhi CM narrating the benefits of the Farm Laws in a media interview, said Captain Amarinder. Trashing AAP’s claim of the video being doctored, he said given their track record of repeated U-turns on the issue, it was amply clear where the party’s sympathies lie on this issue. “How can one believe them after their continued theatrics over the Farm Laws and the farmers’ agitation, including their walk-out from yesterday’s meeting?” he asked, pointing out that this was not the first time AAP had shown its double standards on the issue.
Citing the recorded presence of AAP Punjab member Amrik Micky at Red Fort during the violence of January 26, the Chief Minister said there was no doubt now that the party was hand in glove with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the conspiracy to destabilise and sabotage the farmers’ peaceful agitation.
“What have they done to help or support the farmers in all these months?,” Captain Amarinder asked, adding that the string of AAP actions in recent weeks clearly proved that their sympathies were not with the farmers but with the BJP and their crony capitalists. “Why else did the Kejriwal government in Delhi notify the implementation of one of the black Farm Laws back in November? Why else have they allowed the national capital’s roads to be dug up and the farmers’ protest sites be barricaded like fortresses, instead of exercising their powers since the control of the city’s roads lies with the Delhi Government and not with the Centre?”, asked the Chief Minister.
“It is ridiculous that a party which cannot stop its own property from being taken over in this shocking manner, in a state where it is in power, should walk out from a pro-farmer meeting in Punjab demanding that our police should go to their state, against all rules and laws,” Captain Amarinder remarked. It’s obvious that the whole drama over security deployment at the Delhi border was enacted by AAP only to divert attention from its own lapses and role in the events triggered by the farmers’ protest in Delhi over the past few days, he added.
The Chief Minister also took a dig at Kejriwal for taking more than a week to release the list of farmers thrown, under the Delhi government’s very nose, into the Tihar Jail, which is also under their own control. “And yet you have the gall to claim you care for, and are concerned about the farmers!,” he added.