Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Friday said it would redouble its efforts to get justice for the farmers and labourers in case Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh did not stand by his assurance to implement a complete farm loan waiver during the ongoing budget session.
At the same time, the party castigated the Speaker, Rana KP Singh, for running the Vidhan Sabha in a partisan manner.
“Though the Chief Minister has given an assurance that he would implement the loan waiver promise, he did not seem to be sure about it…Instead of giving an unequivocal statement on the issue in the Assembly, he started talking about lack of funds and even that he could not be pressurised into doing anything,” said former Finance Minister and senior Akali leader Parminder Singh Dhindsa.
He said though they found all this strange and it also indicated that the Congress Government was trying to run away from a complete loan waiver as promised, “we have taken the CM’s assurance at face value”.
“We are ready to even disregard reports of the expert group formed by the CM which has claimed that the waiver is not possible and has even asked for a two month extension to finalize its report. We even stopped our protest in the Vidhan Sabha to force the Speaker to admit an adjournment motion to discuss the need for a complete loan waiver immediately due to this assurance,” he added.
Dhindsa said, however, in case Capt Amarinder did not honour his promise in totality, SAD would restart its agitation in the Vidhan Sabha and would simultaneously also protest outside the house on this issue.
“We want the Government to implement a complete loan waiver of all institutional loans of nationalised and cooperative banks and cooperative institutions and also non institutional loans of commission agents. Anything less than this will be unacceptable,” he added.
Accusing the Speaker of adopting “discriminatory attitude” towards SAD, Dhindsa said that Rana KP Singh was functioning like a stooge of the Congress party.
“Despite repeated requests and written submissions, the Speaker did not allow SAD to move an adjournment on the burning issue of loan waiver for farmers and labourers. He also to act on SAD’s demand to form a house committee to examine the abuses hurled by local Bodies Minister Navjot Sidhu in the assembly yesterday,” said Dhindsa.