Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal would be in Punjab on Wednesday. He is expected to visit Jodhpur village in Barnala district where a debt-ridden farmer and his mother committed suicide last week.
Kejriwal’s visit assumes significance as party MP from Sangrur Bhagwant Mann on Sunday declared that AAP supremo would adopt the two children of the debt-ridden farmer who committed suicide along with his mother at a Barnala village.
Mann had stated that Kejriwal would visit Barnala’s Jodhpur village on May 4 and adopt the farmer’s son and daughter. “Kejriwal says he will have four children now and he will provide them with the best possible education in Delhi,” the MP had said in party’s state-level function on Sunday.
Unable to repay `1.8 lakh loan that his father Darshan Singh had taken in 2002, 35-year-old farmer Baljit Singh and his mother, Balbir Kaur, 62 years, committed suicide when commission agent Teja Singh and his sons go to his door along with police to take possession of his land.
The opposition is condemning the SAD-BJP led Punjab Government for its inaction over the matter.
Meanwhile, Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh on Tuesday asked Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to spell out why he was being selective in reaching out to the families of farmers committing suicide and asked him to “stop celebrating tragedies”.
“From past experience, we know you are fond of selling and celebrating tragedies to get a photo-op as you did after the attack on Pathankot airbase and you are doing it now,” Capt Amarinder told Kejriwal, while referring to AAP’s announcement of adopting the children of the farmer who committed suicide in Barnala over his inability to repay his debt.
Capt Amarinder pointed out that there were hundreds of farmers who have committed suicide and their families also needed relief and rehabilitation.
“While providing relief to the Barnala farmer's family is a nice gesture, will you also spell out as what you plan to do for other families whose earning heads also committed suicideIJ” he asked Kejriwal.
PPCC president told AAP that “instead of resorting to theatrics and photo-ops,” he should come out with a plan for providing relief to farmers.
“Agriculture is too serious and sensitive an issue for someone like you to understand,” he said, adding that you need a comprehensive policy and planning. “We have already mooted a law to prevent dispossession of debt ridden farmers’ land or property as a first step,” he said.
Had such a law been in place the Barnala farmer, whose family Kejriwal is planning to visit, would not have been forced to commit suicide, Amarinder said. “This is not the time to make political capital out of it but seriously think and come out with plans and measures that can prevent further suicides and loss of precious lives,” he said.
He pointed out that while Kejriwal visited the two martyrs in Punjab, he completely forgot others, including one from his own state.