Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge calls BJP and AAP ‘anti-farmer’ parties
The Punjab Police dismantled the protest sites at the Punjab-Haryana border on Wednesday and detained several farmer leaders.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) of being “two anti-farmer parties joining hands against the country’s food providers”.
His remarks come in the backdrop of the Punjab government’s action against farmers late on Wednesday when they bulldozed the temporary structures at the protest sites near the Shambhu and Khanauri borders, where farmers had been protesting for over a year.
Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Kharge accused both parties of being complicit in actions against farmers, recalling the 2017 Mandsaur agitation in Madhya Pradesh where six farmers were killed, and the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri incident, where four protesting farmers were run over by a convoy linked to a BJP leader’s son.
“It appears that two anti-farmer parties have now joined hands against the country’s food providers... First the Punjab government called the farmers for talks and then forcibly removed them from the protest site. Both BJP and AAP are filled with the arrogance of power,” Kharge said in his post on X.
The Punjab Police dismantled the protest sites at the Punjab-Haryana border on Wednesday and detained several farmer leaders, including Jagjit Singh Dallewal, who has been on an indefinite fast, and Kisan Mazdoor Morcha leader Sarvan Singh Pandher.
The Punjab government defended the move, with minister Harpal Singh Cheema stating that the prolonged blockade of highways had severely impacted industries, businesses and employment in the state. He asserted that while the government had called the farmers for discussions, it was necessary to reopen the highways that serve as a vital economic corridor.
“The forcible detention of senior farmer leaders Shri Jagjit Singh Dallewal and Shri Sarwan Singh Pandher by the Punjab Police cannot be condemned enough,” he said.
He accused both the Modi government and AAP of betraying farmers, citing Modi’s unfulfilled promise of guaranteeing minimum support price (MSP) and AAP’s swift implementation of the now-repealed farm laws. “The 62 crore farmers of the country will never forgive these anti-farmer parties.”
Meanwhile, Union minister Ravneet Singh Bittu alleged that the Punjab government’s action was a deliberate attempt to derail the ongoing negotiations between farmer leaders and the Centre.
“I was just having a conversation with (Union agriculture minister) Shivraj Singh Chouhan and (Union commerce minister) Piyush Goyal, and they informed me that we concluded the seventh round of meetings with farmers on a positive note. However, they were shocked to hear what had happened (at the state borders),” Bittu said.
