Amarinder Singh attacked Arvind Kejriwal and ML Khattar over the farmers’ protest. (Archive)
Chandigarh:
Punjab’s Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Friday confronted his Delhi and Haryana counterparts Arvind Kejriwal and Manohar Lal Khattar over their actions amid the farmers’ movement against the new core laws, saying that while one had the habit of lying, the other resorted to violence.
“Kejriwal nu jhooth bolan di aadat hai, aur Khattar nu kuttan di (Kejriwal has a habit of lying and Khattar of hitting), “said the Chief Minister of Congress, lashing out at his opponents from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the BJP.
Calling Mr. Kejriwal “a slimy guy who had a habit of lying”, Captain Singh accused the Delhi Chief Minister of misrepresenting his words and asked him to explain why his government had notified one of the central agricultural laws.
“When other opposition-ruled states, including Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, have passed amendment bills to counteract the core laws, why didn’t he convene a session of the Delhi Assembly to reject the latter?” said the Chief Minister of Punjab.
The two leaders have been arguing about the farmers’ protest for days. Kejriwal had confronted Captain Singh, saying that he has joined the BJP and is upset that the AAP government has not turned the city’s nine stadiums into open prisons.
Punjab’s Chief Minister also fired at his Haryana counterpart, saying that the Khattar police force did not spare even older farmers when they launched a brutal crackdown on protesters passing through his state to protest in Delhi.
Since Kisan’s unions had announced their “Delhi Chalo” march in advance, they should have been summoned for talks, but were instead subjected to water cannons and tear gas shells, he said.
In the country’s biggest agricultural unrest in years, tens of thousands of growers are protesting outside Delhi against three core laws that seek to rid the sector of outdated procurement procedures and allow farmers to sell to institutional buyers and large international retailers.
Farmers, who form a powerful political electorate, fear that laws passed in September will cause the government to stop buying grain at guaranteed prices, leaving them at the mercy of private buyers.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has defended the new laws, saying they only give farmers an option to sell to private buyers.
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