AAP to gherao Punjab BJP office today over slow grain lifting
AAP senior leader and cabinet minister Aman Arora alleged that the Centre’s policies were vindictive, and they were deliberately slowing down the lifting process to create difficulties for farmers and commission agents
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday announced plans to gherao the BJP Punjab’s office in Chandigarh on October 30 to protest against the central government for slow grain lifting which is causing problems for farmers, commission agents, and millers.
Announcing this, AAP senior leader and cabinet minister Aman Arora alleged that the Centre’s policies were vindictive, and they were deliberately slowing down the lifting process to create difficulties for farmers and commission agents. “There is no space in warehouses to store new grain, and mill owners also lack sufficient space. The BJP is taking revenge on Punjab’s farmers for the farmers’ movement,” he claimed.
Arora urged the people of Punjab to join the protest as this matter was affecting farmers, workers, commission agents, and traders. AAP’s state general secretary and Mandi Board chairman Harchand Singh Barsat also criticised the Centre, claiming that it was not listening to the demands of sheller owners and refusing to lift millions of tonnes of grains piled up in mandis.
Earlier, AAP MP Malvinder Singh Kang alleged that the Centre intentionally did not empty the warehouses to trouble the farmers of Punjab. “As the controversy has escalated and the central government finds itself in a difficult position, it is misleading the people of Punjab through its minister Ravneet Singh Bittu,” he said. Kang also raised questions over the BJP leaders’ statements asking why the chief minister (CM)himself was not going to Delhi to resolve the matter. He asked whether the BJP wanted the CM to beg the Prime Minister to empty the warehouses. “If that is what they want, they should openly state that the CM will have to plead for a resolution,” he added.