Punjab Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa on Sunday called upon Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to discard his mask and stop shedding crocodile tears for farmers.
Bajwa was commenting upon Badal’s remarks that the Centre should fix the minimum support prices on the basis of Swaminathan Committee recommendations which provide for at least 50 per cent profit to the growers over and above the cost of production. “He has been parroting this point ever since this report was submitted during the UPA Government and had sold the dream of getting the same implemented under the NDA Government,” said Bajwa.
Bajwa asked as to what excuse he had for not taking up this issue forcefully with his own Government at the Centre in which his own daughter-in-law Harsimrat Kaur Badal was the Cabinet Minister.
“With the induction of Harsimrat Badal, the interests of the Badal family are served but the people continued to suffer as even after the change in the Government, nothing perceptible had been done for this State,” said Bajwa.
Not only that, Badal had now stopped even visiting the Union Ministers while during the UPA Government, his visits used to be too frequent, even to the then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and he never returned empty handed, as evident from the letter written by the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to the State Government while rejecting the demand for a special package.
Reiterating that if Badal was sincere to any of the issues concerning people and Punjab, Bajwa said that he should first convene an all-party meeting to evolve consensus on the issues to be taken up, and then lead a deputation to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“If Badal leads a dharna in front of Modi’s residence on this issue which is very crucial for Punjab farmers and economy of Punjab, we will join him,” he said.
Bajwa pointed out that with other States moving ahead on the farm front, Punjab might lose its importance as the food bowl of the country. “Farmers in Punjab have themselves been doing experiments in diversification but it is the State Government which has failed them by not ensuring marketing facilities for their produce,” he said.
He said that the cultivation of sugarcane was part of the diversification but the people had shifted from this crop due to the failure of sugar mills in the cooperative sector while those in the private sector were thriving.
“Shanta Kumar has been assigned to restructure Food Corporation of India (FCI). The Centre actually wants to dismantle FCI which will result in dismantling of MSP system for foodgrains. This will be the last nail in the coffin for Punjab farmers who are already under immense stress due to low MSP and high input costs,” said Bajwa.