Punjab Congress on Tuesday described the suicide by a poor family resulting in the death of a husband and wife on the issue of land acquisition as a blot on the face of the Parkash Singh Badal Government. “Nothing can be more shocking than a labourer Satgur Singh and his wife and a young daughter committing suicide following the eviction order issued to the family by the land acquisition officer as the land on which their small house stood at Mehal Kalan near Sunam was being acquired for the road widening,” said State Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa.
He said that the “irony is that you have been touting Punjab’s land acquisition legislation as a model one and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been defending the dilution of 2013 land acquisition legislation as being in the interest of the farmers. Both of you need to explain to the people as to how come then that the poor family was forced to commit suicide”.
Bajwa said that this unfortunate incident had shattered the myth being propagated by the Modi Government that the amended land acquisition legislation was in the interest of land owners and it was the Akali Dal that had extended unqualified support to this amendment bill in the lok Sabha. Taking Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to task for showering praise on Modi, Bajwa asked him to give the example of even one good thing that had been done by the Central Government to Punjab except inducting his daughter-in-law Harsimrat Kaur Badal as the Food Processing Minister.
“Modi has let down Punjab on every issue and still Badal is unabashedly going out of the way to praise him. I don’t want to remind Badal of the truck load of money that was to come to Punjab from the Centre with Modi taking over as the Prime Minister. What to talk of special assistance, the Modi government has cut even the normal assistance that the state was getting during the UPA government,” said Bajwa.