Chandigarh, September 8
Strongly criticizing the letter written by Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) to the struggling farmers’ organizations, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) senior leader and Leader of Opposition (LoP) Harpal Singh Cheema said, “The heart of the Badals still beats in the BJP today because every word and every meaning of the letter advocates the Narendra Modi government instead of the farmers.”
In a statement issued from the party headquarters here on Wednesday, Harpal Singh Cheema said the letter sent by the Badal family to the farmers’ organizations through former Lok Sabha member Prem Singh Chandumajra did not mention agricultural laws as black laws; instead the farmers have been jeered for the current situation in Punjab.
Cheema said no one was accepting the claim in the letter that the Badal family and the party had put pressure on the Union government many times in favor of the farmers. According to him, no one can forget the ordinance signed by Harsimrat Kaur Badal, advocacy by Sukhbir Badal in the all-party meeting and eulogy video of Parkash Singh Badal. Therefore, the answers to the questions of the farmers should be given by Sukhbir Singh Badal, Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Parkash Singh Badal themselves and not by making three other leaders including Chandumajra; the scapegoat.
Regarding the lines blaming the farmers, Cheema said the Badals had written in the letter, “Earlier during the local bodies’ elections, we (Badal) had hoped that you (farmers) would appeal to the Punjab government to stop them from going to the polls, but you did not. This could be part of your policy.” He said that nowhere in the letter was it stated in simple and explicit terms that the Akali Dal Badal was adamantly opposed to the black laws on agriculture and these laws were a threat to the agricultural sector and the very existence of ‘annadatas’ in the country. On the contrary, Harsimrat Kaur Badal’s words, ‘she has failed to explain the agricultural laws to the farmers’ had been repeated in ambiguous terms.
Cheema also refuted the claim of the Badals that the resignation of Harsimrat Kaur Badal from the Union Minister had made the farmers’ struggle nationally famous. “Her resignation from the Union Ministry gave a boost to the struggle at the national level,” the letter reads. The AAP leader said that in the letter, it had been repeated that while in government; they had persuaded the Centre not to pass any such law without taking the farmers into confidence. The wording of the letter means that even today, the Badals and company are refraining from speaking out against the fatal agriculture laws. The reason for this is that the Badal family itself is the guardian of corporate thinking, Modi’s devotee and is in cahoots with the BJP to share power again.
Harpal Singh Cheema alleged that through the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee, the Akali Dal Badal was making a vicious attempt in the letter to reward them; the service rendered by the Sikh Sangat to the struggling farmers. He questioned Manjinder Singh Sirsa, “Tell the Sikh Sangat whether the farmers have been served by Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee or the Badals and Company?”
He said the deliberate language of linking the questioning of the Badals during the rallies by the farmers with mischievous elements has been re-introduced in the letter. It is written, “It is true that the people have the right to ask questions from any political party. But the method should be right; the intention should be to get the answer to the question. In the midst of noise and crowds, a mischievous element, by becoming the frontrunner of a party, can cause trouble.”
Cheema appealed to the leaders of the Akali Dal Badal not to try to mislead the farmers, because the actions of Parkash Singh Badal, Sukhbir Singh Badal and Harsimrat Kaur Badal in praising the black agricultural laws are written in black letters on the pages of history.
