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Discuss farmers’ issues, rather than AAP-Cong ‘fixed match’ in House: Jakhar
Accompanied by BJP MLAs Ashwani Sharma and Jangi Lal Mahajan and several former MLAs besides party cadre and workers, Jakhar led a dharna of the party outside the Vidhan Sabha. He said the chief minister was deliberately misleading Punjab’s farmers over the MSP issue.
Punjab BJP president Sunil Jakhar on Monday asked chief minister Bhagwant Mann not to “run away” from Vidhan Sabha every day by managing a “fixed-match” with Congress and have the courage to discuss issues and concerns raised by farmers at the floor of the House.
Accompanied by BJP MLAs Ashwani Sharma and Jangi Lal Mahajan and several former MLAs besides party cadre and workers, Jakhar led a dharna of the party outside the Vidhan Sabha. He said the chief minister was deliberately misleading Punjab’s farmers over the MSP issue.
“Vidhan Sabha is the most appropriate forum to resolve the issues and I have come here to remind Mann and his so-called Opposition Congress of their constitutional duty to convince the people of Punjab what benefit will they get even if the MSP guarantee for all 23 crops is legalised,” said Jakhar while interacting with the media outside the Vidhan Sabha.
He alleged that AAP and Congress were inciting farmers by sending them to Punjab-Haryana borders for staging protests which led to Shubh Karan’s death. “Does not the CM know that Punjab gets full MSP on every single grain of wheat and paddy produced by farmers and there is no other crop as remunerative as these two crops,” said Mann.
“I ask Mann, LoP Partap Singh Bajwa and Amarinder Singh Raja Warring to tell me which crop of the remaining 21 crops farmers are willing to grow. You name that crop, and I will get you MSP guarantee on that from the Centre,” said Jakhar.
Reiterating that Punjab is staring at a situation arising from rapidly depleting groundwater, Jakhar said the CM must convince farmers to come back from the state borders and let the trade of perishable fruits and vegetables, including kinnow, resume smoothly. “How do we even believe that industry will be attracted towards Punjab if we keep borders closed by inciting people,” Jakhar asked the CM, reminding him of his visits to business companies seeking investment for Punjab.
