Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday unveiled the statues of freedom fighters Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Shaheed Sukhdev and Shaheed Rajguru within the premises of the Delhi legislative Assembly on the occasion of “Shaheedi Diwas”.
While raising the issues of Vijay Mallya and farmers’ suicides, he said Bhaghat Singh used to say that Independence would not come by only turning away Britishers from the country and instead, it would come when imperialism and poverty are rooted out and farmers and labourers would live happily.
“When Vijay Mallya ran away with pending loans of Rs 9,000 crore, the entire system has been helpless before him. I don’t think that the Independence of Bhagat Singh (which he used to envisage) has come so far in our country.
“There are several loopholes in our system. On one hand, Mallya ran away with a loan of Rs 9,000 crore and there are several persons like Mallya who owe loans of crores of rupees to banks, but on other hand, our one farmer has to commit suicide for their loan of just Rs 50,000-60,000,” said Kejriwal while addressing a gathering at Delhi Assembly premises.
Raising issue of farmers’ alleged suicide in Punjab, he said farmers are committing suicide there because they were not able to repay their loans. “Recently, I had visited Punjab where farmers are committing suicide. When I asked for reasons, I was told that farmers were committing suicide because of non-payment of their loans taken for crops which were later damaged,” he said.
Kejriwal said some families of farmers who committed suicide told him they had to commit suicide as they were also not able to bear excessive medical expenses of hospitals. lauding his Government’s work done for the welfare of farmers in the Capital, the Delhi CM said they will not let poor people die, who cannot afford medical expenses.
“The Delhi Government has given the highest compensation to farmers for their crop losses in the history of Independent India. We gave `20,000 per acre compensation to farmers for their crop losses. When farmers face problems, it is the responsibility of Government to resolve their issues,” said Kejriwal.