Former Speaker seeks special House session

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Sirsa, December 18

Former Speaker and Congress MLA Kuldeep Sharma today demanded a special Assembly session to discuss the plight of farmers in light of urea shortage in the state.

He said it is for the first time in the state that such farmers have come out on the roads and railway tracks to save their crops from withering away. Instead, the state was resorting to a lathi charge to disperse them rather than provide them the fertilizer they needed, he added.

“It is strange that CM Manohar Lal Khattar is claiming there is no dearth of urea while there were long queues of farmers outside IFFCO, HAFED and other government agencies. In some cases, the fertilizer was being distributed in police stations,” Sharma said.

He said Agriculture Minister OP Dhankar was accusing the farmers of hoarding urea rather than ensuring adequate supply of the fertilizer. “If there was no paucity of urea, why had the CM met the Union Agriculture Minister on this issue,” he said.

Sharma said owing to inexperience, the state has so only lifted 1.17 lakh MT of the 3 lakh MT of urea allocated to Haryana.