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Stop deceiving Gujarat farmers, SAD tells AAP
As per a statement released by the party’s former minister, Daljit Singh Cheema, AAP government in Punjab had only promised MSP on moong and maize and had failed to deliver on both.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Sunday asked Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener Arvind Kejriwal not to speak “white lies” to befool farmers of Gujarat in the run-up to assembly elections in the state.
As per a statement released by the party’s former minister Daljit Singh Cheema, AAP government in Punjab had only promised minimum support price (MSP) on moong and maize and had failed to deliver on both.
“It was shocking that Kejriwal was claiming in Gujarat that the AAP government in Punjab was giving MSP on five crops and that the same formula would be replicated in Gujarat,” he added.
The truth, however, is that the central government is procuring wheat and paddy on MSP in Punjab through the Food Corporation of India, said Cheema. Similarly, the Cotton Corporation of India procures cotton, he added.
“Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had urged farmers to sow moong and promised to procure the entire crop on an MSP of ₹7,250 per quintal but did not even procure 10% of the crop. The state government has similarly failed to procure the maize crop leaving farmers to their fate.”
Telling Kejriwal not to give false hopes to farmers of Gujarat, Cheema said the farmers should come to Punjab and see the ground reality for themselves. “The truth is that farmers have been indebted because they believed the AAP government and went in for large scale cultivation of Maize and Moong”. Far from giving MSP on the crops, the Punjab government had still not given compensation to farmers whose crops had been damaged due to untimely rains and the losses due to large-scale attacks of dwarfing virus in the current paddy crop.
