POINTS OUT ‘EVEN IF HE DECLARES FARMERS AS PROTECTEES, PUNJAB POLICE CAN’T STAY IN ANOTHER STATE MORE THAN 72 HOURS’
Chandigarh, January 31
Trashing as `arbitrary, absurd and irrational’ the Aam Aadmi Party’s demand for deployment of the state police to protect the agitating farmers from Punjab at Delhi borders, Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Sunday said Arvind Kejriwal’s party had clearly lost all sense of Constitutional and legal propriety, and was completely ignorant even on the law laid down by the highest court of the land.
This demand is not only completely illogical and frivolous, but against all principles and rules of the law, said the Chief Minister, reacting to a letter received by his office from AAP, calling for police protection of the protesting farmers from Punjab.
Mocking AAP’s senseless demand, the Chief Minister pointed out that, as per a Union Home Ministry directive and a Supreme Court order, the Punjab Police cannot stay in another state for more than 72 hours even for a protectee, which the farmers are in any case not. “So, this would mean that even if I sign an order today declaring some, if not all, farmers out there as protectees, (which is really neither feasible nor realistic), that would mean the Punjab Police can only be with them for 72 hours and not more,” he added.
“This further means that as Chief Minister of Punjab, which I definitely am for all intents and purposes, howsoever much AAP may wish otherwise, my hands are tied by the law, which your party has clearly no respect for,” Captain Amarinder further quipped, ridiculing AAP’s pathetic letter, which exposed nothing but “their desperation to seize Punjab’s reins by hook or by crook”, and mocking Kejriwal’s party’s propensity to indulge in street politics throwing all legal correctness to the wind.
Hitting out at AAP’s criticism of Sunil Jakhar’s statement on this issue, the Chief Minister said it was not the Punjab Congress president who was indulging in absurdity but AAP, which clearly does not know the difference between a protectee and a non-protectee citizen. “Perhaps you should ask your own chief minister in Delhi about this, though there is no guarantee that Kejriwal would know any better, given his track record of poor governance and ignorance,” said Captain Amarinder.
Had AAP bothered to do some home-work or fact-checking, they would have found out the legal position on the issue and not wasted time, which they could have utilized in doing something constructive for the agitating farmers, who are sitting virtually outside his doorstep for the past over two months, said the Chief Minister.
Captain Amarinder termed the letter from AAP as nothing more than a tactic by the party to divert public attention from its own role in the Red Fort violence, which had exposed the farmers to attacks and victimization by the Delhi Police. AAP’s own men were caught on camera inciting trouble at the Red Fort on Republic Day, he pointed out, adding that the collusion between AAP and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the Farm Laws had been exposed long back, when Kejriwal notified one of the laws in his own state, and was no longer a matter of debate or discussion.
Lashing out at AAP for conspiring with the BJP to sabotage the farmers’ agitation, the Chief Minister said the demand for police protection for farmers, who had been peacefully protesting till these two parties incited trouble, was “nothing more than dramebaazi by this party of dramebaaz’.
