Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Tuesday described the Delhi’s Kejriwal-led Delhi Government’s stand against Punjab on the SYl issue in the Supreme Court as “a stab in the back of all Punjabis on an issue of life and death for Punjabis, especially farmers.
“The AAP has miserably failed and stands fully exposed in its very first test of loyalty to the state, especially to our toiling farmers. This is the height of political opportunism and broad daylight falsehood. I am sad this has come at the expense of the beleaguered farming peasantry of my state,” said the Chief Minister, adding, “I do not know how Kejriwal will now come and face the people of Punjab after playing this fraud on them.”
In a statement, Badal said, “The saga of outsiders coming to Punjab to offer fake sympathies and then going back to betray the state within hours and leave its people bleeding continues. Does it behove a Chief Minister to indulge in such an act of deceit against the poor, innocent and trusting farmersIJ,” asked Badal adding, “People have been talking about Kejriwal’s politics of falsehood and opportunism. But he should have spared the brave and patriotic farmers who are already facing such hardships because farming has become a non-lucrative profession,” said Badal in a statement here.
“How shocking that Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had been befooling the farmers of Punjab by visiting and offering crocodile tears to the tragedy-stricken families here only to take a brazenly treacherous stand against the same farmers in the Supreme Court. In Punjab, Kejriwal said that Punjab alone had an exclusive right over the Ravi-Beas waters and that he and his party were opposed to the construction of the SYl. But no sooner did he leave the sate than he went back on his word and declared that Ravi Beas waters belonged to Haryana, Himachal, J&K and Delhi and that Punjab did not have any exclusive right over these waters,” said the Chief Minister.
The Chief Minister
added that he had not
reacted to Kejriwal’s earlier flip-flop because he thought that the Delhi Chief Minister might have been misquoted by the media.
“But what happened in the Supreme Court on Monday has shocked me and everyone else, especially the farmers. I do not know how will the AAP leadership in Punjab face the Punjabis now, having betrayed the State and its farmers on the most critical issue on the very first opportunity they got to stand by them,” concluded Punjab Chief Minister.