Defer all engagements to solve farmers’ problems: SAD to PM Modi
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, November 28
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Saturday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “put all other engagements on hold and personally address and resolve the genuine demands of the agitating annadata of the country as a top national priority”.
“The agitators’ demands on the three anti-farmer Acts are perfectly legitimate, secular and constitutional,” said the party.
“The Prime Minister and his colleagues have repeatedly maintained that the assured marketing of farmers’ produce at minimum support price will be continued under all circumstances. That being so, there should be no objection to nor any problem in giving a legal shape to the government’s commitments through necessary legislation.”
The core committee of the party which met here this afternoon, also came down heavily against the Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar for his “highly provocative, dangerous and divisive statement” dubbing the farmers as “Khalistanis”.
“Do these beleaguered elderly men and ladies from farmers’ families look like Khalistanis to Khattar and his party? It is not the farmers but the Haryana CM himself who is guilty of flouting the Constitution of the country on the anniversary of the Adoption Day of the Statute,” the party said in a statement.
The party also accused the Haryana CM of trying to revive the old Congress tactics to paint its political opponents as separatists.
“It is the same mindset that was responsible for the Congress repression against Akali agitators in 1982 and continued for a decade and a half, painting a fiercely patriotic community as separatist,” read the SAD resolution.
The party further said: “The fact is that the BJP and its governments at the Centre and in Haryana have got jittery by the success of the farmers’ secular and democratic movement.”
SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal has also set up a three-member committee including S Balwinder Singh Bhundur, Prof Prem Singh Chandumajra and S Sikander Singh Maluka to coordinate with leaders of the like-minded national and regional parties across the country for all-round support to secure justice for the farmers and get the “black laws” against them repealed.
