Slamming Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for “shamelessly” spreading canards, Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar on Wednesday asserted that it was the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), led by Parkash Singh Badal, which had passed the nefarious Punjab Contract Farming Act in 2013 in collusion with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“It was this SAD-BJP combine which had dared to introduce a jail term for farmers in the Budget Session of 2013 after suspending nine Congress MLAs to throttle their voice against these draconian measures,” said Jakhar showing the video clips of the said session while addressing the media.
Mincing no words, Jakhar lambasted AAP for siding with BJP on a sensitive issue of farmers’ welfare. “They have bartered their souls to their political bosses in BJP and are only hell bent on defaming our farmers for their petty political aims,” he said.
Asking AAP’s Punjab unit co-in-charge Raghav Chadha to apologize to Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh for making false allegations against him, Jakhar pointed that the Congress legislators were not part of the proceedings during which the questioned Bill was passed after the BJP’s Manoranjan Kaila seconded the Bill, presented by the then Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.
Watching his political base slipping away, the SAD president is busy protecting his own turf rather than protecting the interests of the farmers he espouses so brazenly, Jakhar pointed out.
Throwing an open challenge to the BJP, Jakhar said that rather than making provoking statements, the party leaders should come to Punjab Agriculture University, Ludhiana, for an open debate on three anti-farmer agriculture laws and make the farmers understand about the benefits of these laws.