lashing out at the Congress for attacking her on the issue of special package to Punjab, Union Food Processing Industry Minister Harsimrat Badal on Thursday said that the State deserved a special financial package and she had always been in the forefront for raising this demand.
Harsimrat, rubbishing Opposition charges, said: “Being a Union M inister, I will leave no stone unturned for getting a special package as the state has contributed to the national freedom struggle, made the country self-reliant in food production, safeguarded the borders from external invasion and preserved the country’s unity and integrity.”
Stating that the opposition as well as political discards who did not even know which party they belonged to, were feeling frustrated at their repeated rejection by the people and were now trying to create issues where none existed.
“I would like to place on the record that any issue connected with Punjab matters to me as a Punjabi. I have always fought and raised the issue of plight of farmers in parliament. How can I ever say that Punjab never needs a special packageIJ” she said
She said that political discards who were trying to project themselves as well wishers of farmers should look into their past conduct, including public statements saying that Punjab government should do away with the free power subsidy to farmers.
“Such people, who have never supported the cause of farmers, have no right to speak on farmer issues,” she said.
The Union Minister said that a special economic package was Punjab’s “legitimate demand” as the state had suffered a lot during the period of terrorism. “I had even requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to consider the State’s demand sympathetically,” she added.
She also pointed out that successive Congress governments at the Centre were responsible for breaking the peasantry’s back. Punjab had benefited immensely from the NDA rule at the Centre, but one year was too short a period to evaluate any government’s performance.
The Minister pointed out that recently in Bathinda, she talked only about compensation for farmers who were victims of whitefly attack.