Chandigarh – Shiromani Akali Dal president Sardar Sukhbir Singh Badal said here today that thePunjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has stabbed the farmers in the back by implementing the corporate agenda, giving them monopoly over marketing of farmers produce. “ For the farmers, Bhagwant Mann is wolf in sheep’s clothing. He has now become the first Chief Minister in the country to implement the three Farm Acts against which over 700 farmers had sacrificed their lives in the long struggle.”
“Mann kept running with the hair and hunting with the hounds. He kept pretending to be the farmers’ friend while secretly helping their enemies. He kept mum as peaceful farmers were being lethally attacked in their own state by the Haryana police which resulted in the broad-daylight murder of Shubhkaran Singh in the prime of his youth and grievous injuries to countless other farmers. Now, he has dug his dagger deep into the back of the entire farmers community by dismantling the APMC and allowing silos to big business houses while pretending to farmers that he was with them, ” said Mr Badal in a statement here.
The Akali president asked the Chief Minister to come clean on what quid pro quo had he received from big Corporates in exchange for the sellout of farmers' crucial interests. “It is a question of life and death for the farmers and Bhagwant Mann cannot pretend that he doesn’t know what the farmers want. The whole world knows about that.”
“I have always said that AAP is a multi-fanged cobra. The implementation of the Farm Act against the farmers is just one more example of the hypocrisy and two faced conduct of AAP and of Bhagwant Mann on every issue concerning Punjab and farmers. He has been quietly surrendering the interests of the people of Punjab on every issue including Chandigarh, river waters, the Punjabi language and our control on the BBMB. He has now committed the most unforgivable sin of betraying the farmers, ” said Mr Badal.