Chandigarh, December 16: Punjab Cabinet Minister and Senior Congress Leader Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa disproved the claim of Aam Aadmi Party Chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal that farmers in Delhi have been paid more than the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for their crops. He questioned that if the Delhi government had procured the crop at a higher price than the MSP, then why paddy from Bihar, UP and Madhya Pradesh reached Punjab for sale.
Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa further said that during the procurement of paddy, trucks carrying paddy from other states for sale in Punjab were seized by the farmers and police at the Punjab border. He questioned Kejriwal that the total production of paddy in Delhi would be less than even one block of Punjab. He quipped, “why farmers from other states did not go to Delhi to sell paddy from their states especially when you were buying paddy at a higher price than MSP?”
Randhawa said that Kejriwal had started his politics with lies and by making misleading false statements on burning issues, he reached the chair of Delhi Chief Minister. He said that the politics of taking advantage of the farmers was based on lies and it was only by misleading the people that he became the Chief Minister.
The Minister further said that in fact Kejriwal was a mask set up by the BJP which was using its bosses’ orders to weaken the peasant struggle. He said that with the issuance of anti-farmer law by the Delhi government on November 23, the cat has come out of the bag. He appealed to the farmers’ organizations to beware of the nefarious designs of the BJP’s B team. He said that Kejriwal, who was sitting on a dharna, chose to hide himself behind an excuse that he had been kept under house arrest. The question that now arises is why he has never been placed under house arrest before and now when the time came to stage a dharna in front of the Prime Minister’s residence in the interest of the farmers, he is making lame excuses. On the other hand, the Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh had not allowed any harm come to farmers during their protests in Punjab and is still putting pressure on the Center to withdraw these black laws as soon as possible in the interest of the farmers.
