The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Thursday demanded a special session of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha to discuss the serious issue of farm crisis in the State.
Demanding to convene the special session, the newly-appointed leader of the Opposition Sukhpal Khaira also demanded resignation of the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh for his failure controlling the farmer suicides in the state.
Khaira, who along with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MP and state unit chief Bhagwant Mann, addressed party workers at Mansa after offering prayers are gurudwaras in Fatehgarh Sahib, Patiala, said: “I am writing to the Chief Minister asking him to call for a special assembly session in order to address the farm crisis prevailing in the state.”
“We want a three-day televised session of the assembly wherein we would like to discuss the issues like farm crisis, suicides, agricultural indebtedness that has wrecked the state’s economy,” he said, adding that AAP would demand one-time settlement of farmers’ debt.
Taking on Capt Amarinder for making “lofty promises” with the people of the state and not fulfilling it, Khaira said: “Farmers have mentioned Capt Amarinder in their suicide notes. The government first raised hopes but has done nothing to resolve the issue.”
Khaira demanded that the state government should implement moratorium for one year on recovery of loans from all farmers who have less than five acre land to stop farmer suicides and the Government should pay their interest.
Coming down heavily on the former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son Sukhbir Badal, he demanded an apology from the father-son duo from the Akal Takht for registering hundreds of false cases against their opponents during their decade-long rule.
He also condemned SAD’s Jabar Virodhi lehar, launched in Thursday by party president Sukhbir Badal from Dera Baba Nanak.
Khaira minced no words to term Capt Amarinder’s government as “extension of Akali government”. On AAP, Khaira said that big political powers are hatching conspiracy against Delhi Chief Minister and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal to stop emergence of third power like the party did in Punjab during assembly polls by relating him to an extremist set of people.