Echoing the famous slogan ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’ coined by the late Prime Minister of India lal Bahadur Shastri, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Friday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to immediately take major initiatives to pull out distressed peasantry from agrarian crisis on the lines of implementing ‘One Rank One Pension (OROP)’ for the valiant soldiers of the country.
Addressing the rally at Sector 25 rally ground, the Chief Minister said that with the implementation of OROP, the NDA Government under the leadership of Modi had fulfilled the long pending genuine demand of the Army veterans and now it was the high time to lend a helping hand to the beleaguered farmers, who have sacrificed everything at their end to make our country self reliant in food production, was already on verge of economic disaster due to retrograde farm policies of the successive Congress Governments at the Centre.
Badal impressed upon the Prime Minister to come forward to bail out the poor peasantry already grappling with adverse economic conditions in terms of non remunerative prices coupled with ever escalating cost of agriculture inputs.
“By doing so, you will not only be rewarding the hapless farmers, who had been so far marginalised or even ignored by the grave insensitivity and apathy of the previous Governments but also realise the dream of late lal Bahadur Shastri in translating this slogan into reality” he said while conveying his sentiments about the plight of farmers to Modi.
Complementing Modi for allotting several prestigious development projects to the State, the Chief Minister said that he was personally indebted to him on behalf of Punjabis for sanctioning IIM, AIIMS, Post Graduate Institute of Horticulture Research and Education, HRIDAY status to holy city of Amritsar, World Heritage status to Martyrs memorial at Jallianwala Bagh besides declaring Jalandhar, ludhiana and Amritsar as ‘Smart Cities’.
He said that Shiromani Akali Dal had been striving hard since long to empower the States but it was purely Prime Minister’s initiative to ensure ‘Cooperative Federalism’ besides enhancing states’ share in Central taxes from 32 per cent to 42 per cent thereby giving far more financial autonomy to the States.
Badal also appreciated initiative taken by the Prime Minister to replace the archaic Planning Commission of India with novel NITI Aayog, where a governing body with Chief Ministers’ from all States as its members and all the decisions were now being taken related to development of these States with their prior consent.