Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Sunday challenged the Shiromani Akali Dal (SaD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal to quit the BJP-led central government to prove his party’s sincerity in the farm Ordinances issue. Pointing out that, as a member of the ruling alliance at the Centre, the SaD was party to the Ordinances and had supported them unconditionally, the Chief Minister asked if the Akali leader was ready to vote against the Ordinances in Parliament as and when the Central government put them to vote.
The CM termed as total hogwash the SaD’s appeal to the union government not to present the three central agricultural Ordinances for approval in Parliament until all reservations expressed by farmer organisations were addressed.
He recalled Sukhbir’s assertion, during the all-party convened by him (Captain Amarinder) on the issue in June, that the Central government had assured the SaD that there would be no tinkering of the MSP.
It is more than obvious now that the SaD president had lied then in a deliberate bid to mislead the farmers, he said.
“What were they doing when the Ordinances were being brought in? why did they not object? after all, they are part of the central government responsible for these Ordinances?” he asked.
The Chief Minister said that the SaD’s sudden decision to urge the Centre “not to rush through the Ordinances” reflected their desperation to get back into the good books of the farmers’ unions/organisations with an eye on the Punjab assembly elections, which were just about 18 months away.