WILL WORK WITH LIKE-MINDED PARTIES TO ACHIEVE FEDERAL GOALS, SAYS SUKHBIR BADAL

AMRITSAR: Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Monday called for a truly federal structure in the country with genuine political, economic and executive autonomy to the states.

“This alone is the ultimate and durable guarantee against the social, political and economic turmoil which the country has been witnessing in recent years,” said the SAD president addressing the media after offering Ardas at Sri Akali Takhat Sahib complex for the launch of year long functions for the party’s centennial commemoration.

Badal said, “The alarming crisis following the passage of three farm Acts would not have arisen if the government had followed a federal approach through consultation, conciliation and consensus among certain states.”

“The farmers’ crisis cannot be de-linked from the ill-advised unitary and dictatorial tendencies in the country. The problem could have been averted through an approach based on federal principles,” Sukhbir added.

Badal lamented that during the present BJP government, “the country has seen a dangerous slide into an increasingly autocratic and unitary system with growing centralisation of power in a few hands.” He said his party would work in tandem with like-minded regional and national parties to make India a genuine federal country.

Referring to the on-going peaceful and democratic movement of the farmers, Badal said that SAD fully backed the farmers’ demand for “total revocation of the farm Acts. The government must not stand on prestige and must understand that farmers see these Acts as a threat to their survival.”

Badal also targeted the Captain Amarinder Singh-led Congress government in Punjab, saying that in the past four years, “things have remained stuck where we have left them. In most key areas, the state has actually slid down on key progress parameters”.