Day after Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann's illegal wealth barb, farmer leaders say show the proof
Land pooling policy row: Union leaders ask what stopping Mann from getting investigation done into their assets
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The relations between the farmer unions and the ruling Aam Aadmi Party have hit another low after Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann accused them of amassing illegal wealth yesterday and the Samyukt Kisan Morcha now asking him to prove the charges.
The SKM, many of whose constituent unions have been opposing the bid to acquire 24,311 acres of land near Ludhiana under the Land Pooling Policy, has taken umbrage to the allegation levelled against the farmer leaders by the Chief Minister. The union today demanded that the CM withdrew his statement.
Jhanda Singh Jethuke, senior leader of BKU (Ekta-Ugrahan), said the CM should have refrained from making “baseless and unsubstantiated allegations” against the leaders. “If at all the CM thinks these to be true, what stops him from getting an investigation done into the assets of the leaders? He has the state’s resources at his disposal. But making frivolous allegations without proof is not acceptable,” he said.
The Chief Minister Mann had yesterday accused the leaders of farmer unions of misleading people on the issue of land pooling policy. During a public meeting in Bathinda, he had said farmer leaders had opened “shops in the name of securing the interests of farmers”.
Senior SKM leader Balbir Singh Rajewal said the government wanted to take away farmers land for development and would give them residential and commercial plots in lieu of their lands only when the land would be developed. “That could take years. Does the government want to deprive farmers of livelihood? The government should come clean on that,” he said.
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The relations between the farmer unions and AAP government have become sour, since March, when the government first foiled the SKM’s statewide protests by arresting their main leaders just before the protest. Later, the entire top brass of the SKM (non-political) were arrested after they left a meeting convened by the three-member panel of Union Ministers in Chandigarh, and thus lifted their year-long dharna at Shambhu and Khanauri.
This also marks a shift in the political base of the ruling AAP, which had received a massive support from farmer unions in the 2022 Assembly polls. In the Malwa region, it was only because of the support of farmers that AAP won 66 of the 69 seats, and many of the AAP MLAs had won with huge margins.
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