Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday announced to stage a protest against the “impartial, inappropriate and deceitful” debt waiver at Mansa on January 7 by showing black flags to Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh.
Announcing this, AAP MlA and the leader of Opposition Sukhpal Khaira said that the party was forced to lodge this protest as there was great resentment amongst the small and marginal farmers of Punjab who have felt deceived and cheated by the Congress Government on the so-called debt waiver scheme.
Khaira said that Capt Amarinder’s false promise of waiving of debt had taken his first toll on Thursday when a farmer Sikander Singh of Sangrur, owning two-acre, not finding his name in the list committed suicide.
“His office is maintaining a list of farmers who had committed suicides ever since Capt Amarinder took over as Chief Minister on March 16, 2017. As per the list, 311 farmers had committed suicide till a day before, which indicates that the farmers have lost complete faith in Capt Amarinder and the Congress Government,” said Khaira.
He said that he has been receiving many complaints from small and marginal farmers that their names are being excluded from the debt waiver list because of political reasons as well as officials demanding bribe from them.
“The current Government and its MlA are picking up debt waiver beneficiaries at their whims and fancies and ignoring genuine deserving farmers who will have no other way but to commit suicide,” he said.
Khaira reminded Capt Amarinder of his pre-poll promise of a complete debt waiver, both institutional as well as non-institutional loans, that amount to approximately Rs 1 lakh crore, whereas now, “the Government had shrunk this debt waiver package to approximately Rs 750 crore and that too by pledging the income of Punjab Mandi Board for the next 10 years”.
“To pressurise the Government to genuinely ameliorate the lot of struggling farmers, AAP has decided to protest at the Chief Minster rally venue on January 7 by showing black flags to him,”
he said.