Chandigarh: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has slammed the Captain Amarinder Singh-led government in the state for backtracking on its tall promise on complete loan waiver.
In a statement issue from party headquarters in Chandigarh here on Wednesday, Punjab unit chief of the party and Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann said that the government had designed this sham loan waiver narrative simply to lure the public with an eye on the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. He alleged that the government was now engaged in splurging lakhs of public money to putting up hoardings in every nook and corner of the state highlighting its ‘achievements’ during its two-year term, which, Mann said was a mere hype and hoopla generated to translate it into votes. He reminded the government in the saddle that the people were well aware of their cheap gimmicks to win public sympathy. He said that elections could not be won merely by highlighting ‘achievement’ through hoardings, as ‘actions speak louder than words’, they say.
Expressing serious concern over the plight of farmers in the state, Mann said that Punjab had joined the league with other states under as were head over heels in rural debt. If figures were to be believed, a whopping rupees one lakh crore was still pending against the farmers in the state, which included 80, 000 institutional and 20,000 crore non-institutional debts, Mann said.
The Sangrur MP further said that both the state government and union governments had failed on the loan waiver poll plank, a fact that the farmers had been well aware of. He alleged that both the governments had ignited a spark of hope among the farmers, but all their dreams were shattered when the governments backtracked on the promise made to mitigate their sufferings. The government had come up with another ‘jumla’ being touted as ‘Kisan relief’, which Mann said was a design to take the farmers for a ride.
Reacting to the union government’s decision to pay rupees 6000 to each farmers in the country every year, which, Mann said, was too late and too late. This had left the vast community of farmers dismayed and disillusioned.
With the announcement of these small sops the government was pretending and posing themselves as the saviors of the farming community, Mann. He mounted a scathing attack on the government for non-implementation of the lSwaminathan Commission recommendation, which Mann said, showed Modi government’s anti-farmer face. Had the report been implemented, every farmer would have been able to get minimum support price for his produce in the market.
Making the AAP’s stand clear, Mann said that the party had been on the forefront fighting for the rights of the farming community and would continue to stand behind them through thick and thin in the future also.