AAP evicted farmers, Centre engaged with them, says Chouhan

Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Friday attacked the Opposition parties for accusing the BJP of “betraying farmers’ interests” as said it was the AAP government in Punjab that evicted agitating farmers from the state’s Shambhu and Khanauri borders with Haryana.

During his hour-long response to a discussion on demands for grants for Agriculture Ministry in the Lok Sabha, Chouhan said at least, three Union ministers held talks with agitating farmers with a lot of humility.

“Till Lok Sabha elections, Congress and AAP were friends and together. Now, the BJP is being blamed for getting the farmers evicted?” the Agriculture Minister wondered amid taunts from the treasury benches.

“They dug up a mountain only to find a dead rat,” Chouhan said, contending that the opposition’s attempts to portray the BJP as anti-farmer had come a cropper. “Have we been friends with AAP? You were walking arm-in-arm till the Lok Sabha elections. You were together and you are accusing us,” Chouhan said.

Chouhan claimed that several former prime ministers, Jawaharlal Nehru, did not take many initiatives for farmers. The BJP-led NDA government in the past 10 years has thought of small and marginal farmers and came up with crop insurance scheme and increased MSP on various crops.

Punjab govt, Centre betrayed farmers' trust: Channi

Jalandhar Congress MP Charanjeet Singh Channi on Friday slammed the Centre and the Punjab government for betraying the trust of farmers by “evicting them” from the protest sites on the state’s Shambhu and Khanauri borders with Haryana.

The Congress leader alleged that both worked in cahoots with each other.

Speaking on a discussion on demands for grants for the Agriculture Ministry, Channi said the protesting farmers were stopped at the Haryana border while on their way to Delhi last year.

“They were trying to come to Delhi to meet the Union government. Why did the central government stop them? Farmers were defamed for blocking roads and destroying the economy. Farmers are food growers but they have been betrayed by the Punjab Government, who first assured them of talks, spoke to them but simultaneously uprooted them from their protest sites," the former Punjab CM alleged.