Congress Deputy leader in lok Sabha Captain Amarinder Singh on Monday suggested Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to stage dharna, along with his Ministers, outside the Prime Minister's Office to press farmer's issue if Narendra Modi was not giving him time.
The former Chief Minister, after visiting the grain markets of Patiala and Khanna, said: "If Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not giving time to Badal, he should better stage a dharna instead of loitering around and issuing hollow threats to seek his attention."
Captain Amarinder visited the grain market along with the leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha Sunil Jakhar, senior leaders and MlAs laal Singh, Preneet Kaur and Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, Gurkirat Kotli and Hardayal Kambhoj, and talked to the farmers and asked about the problems they were facing.
He said that the farmers told him that they were not getting any payment and instead they (the farmers) were given receipts of their produce on plain papers without any assurance as when they will get the payments.
He recalled that when he was the Chief Minister, he had led a dharna outside the office of the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to flag his attention towards the problems in lifting of the crops by the central agencies and hike in the Minimum Support Price.
"But Badal wants to have the cake and eat it too," he said, pointing out that on the one hand, he was conveying that he was "not happy with the NDA government", while at the same time, he was not prepared to withdraw his daughter-in-law from the union ministry.
Capt Amarinder said that by trying to shift the entire blame on the Central Government, Badal was trying to "escape the responsibility".