Harsimrat Kaur has no moral right to speak on crisis triggered by farm laws: Punjab CM Capt Amarinder Singh

Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Wednesday said that no Akali leader, especially former Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, had the moral right to speak on the crisis triggered by the farm laws, which they could easily have averted when they were part of the Central government and were party to each of its anti-people decisions.

Hitting hard at Harsimrat Kaur, the Chief Minister slammed the Akali leader over her ‘politically-motivated’ remarks which were nothing but a cover-up of her and her party’s failure to prevent the crisis that was of their own deliberate making.

Ridiculing Kaur’s remarks that he was speaking the language of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership and the Prime Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh said that left to the ruling party at the Centre and in neighbouring Haryana, the farmers would not have even reached the Delhi borders to make their voice heard.

“I never asked the farmers to go to Delhi. They were forced to leave their homes and sit at the border of the national capital, facing the elements and even losing their lives, as a result of your coalition government’s acts of commission and omission,” he said, asking Harsimrat to stop lying about her brazen complicity in the imposition of the farm laws on the farmers, not just of Punjab but the entire country.

Dubbing as atrocious Harsimrat’s suggestion that the farmers should protest in Punjab while their fight was against the BJP-led government at the Centre, the Chief Minister quipped, “It’s like asking someone to go to the western front to fight an enemy that is standing at the eastern border.”

It was evident that the Akalis were trying to divert the farmers’ attention from the Centre to the state, with an eye on the forthcoming Assembly polls, unmindful of the harm this would cause to the state and to the farmers themselves, he added.

Taking a dig at Harsimrat’s claim of being “surprised and pained” at his remarks, Capt Amarinder Singh said either the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader was deliberately lying or was totally dumb and apathetic to the plight of the state and its people.

“It’s a joke coming from the leader of a party that misruled Punjab for 10 years and brought the state to the brink of complete ruination,” he said, asking Harsimrat where her pain had disappeared for those 10 years when the SAD-BJP government was inflicting one injury after another on the people with their corrupt acts.

The Akali leaders never did understand or can understand the suffering of Punjab’s people, including its farmers, he added.

Meanwhile, Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president Navjot Singh Sidhu has alleged that Badals were ‘key architects’ of the three farm laws enacted by the NDA government.

Sidhu, at his first press conference after taking over as PPCC chief, attacked the SAD-BJP government under the chief ministership of Prakash Singh Badal for introducing the Punjab Contract farming Act, 2013.

He also accused Parkash Singh Badal, the then CM of Punjab, his deputy Sukhbir Singh Badal and former Union Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal for first praising the NDA for bringing the farm laws and then taking a U-turn to oppose them.

Sidhu claimed that Harsimrat Kaur Badal signed thrice on the documents which were a precursor to enactment of the laws.

The PPCC chief also praised the Punjab government for waiving farm loans and debts worth Rs 5000 crore.