Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Wednesday said the Congress Government was playing a massive fraud on farmers and dalits by resorting to cheap gimmicks like doing away with ‘kurki’ (attachment of properties) which was never implemented in the last 10 years of SAD-BJP tenure besides renaming schemes instead of fulfilling poll promises like complete loan waiver and hiking social welfare benefits.
“The deceit and double speak of the Congress Government could be gauged from the fact that it announced yesterday that it had done away with ‘kurki’ of indebted farmers...One only has to read the fine print to realize that kurki has been done away with only in case of loans taken from cooperative banks. Such loans constitute only 10 to 15 per cent of the total loans taken by Punjab farmers,” said the former minister and SAD general secretary Bikram Singh Majithia adding that this was a publicity stunt.
“Everyone knows that the SAD-BJP Government did not let the Cooperative Department implement this law. No kurki was happening on the ground,” he said adding that practice of kurki restarted immediately after the Congress came into power in the State.
It is likely to continue with the Government not taking nationalised banks and arhtiyas (commission agents) in the ambit of its decision which was solely concerned with cooperative bank loans only, he said adding that this means the net impact of the cabinet decision on kurki is zero.
Asking the Congress Government not to run away from its poll promises, Majithia asked it to tell Punjabis why it had failed to implement its word to institute a complete loan waiver of around one lakh crore rupees immediately after coming to power.
Terming the new Congress government as a “headline hunter Government”, the Akali leader said that it seemed that the government did not want to do anything except find ways to stay in the news and continue playing fraud with the people.
Majithia said the recent actions of the Congress government, including the defrauding of Punjabis in the latest cabinet meeting, had made it clear that the government did not intend to fulfill any of its poll promises.
“We will, however, not let this Government escape its responsibility and expose it before the people by launching a mass movement amongst farmers, dalits and youth who have been betrayed by it. We will take all sections of society with us and force the Government to deliver on its promises,” he added.