AAP protests against Centre over ‘tardy’ paddy lifting

Chandigarh: Police here on Wednesday used water cannons on the AAP’s Punjab unit leaders and workers as they tried to march towards the state BJP office to “gherao” it in protest against the slow lifting of paddy in the state. Several Punjab ministers, including Harjot Singh Bains, Harbhajan Singh, Laljit Singh Bhullar and Tarunpreet Singh Sond, as well as many other party legislators were part of the protest.

Police had set up barricades near the Punjab BJP office. As the AAP workers tried to jump over the barricades and move towards the BJP office, police used water cannons to stop them.

In the melee, Harjot Bains’ turban got tossed up. Bains, his ministerial colleagues who were part of the protest, and several other party MLAs and workers were briefly detained by the police. Before being detained, AAP leaders lashed out at the BJP-led Centre for not lifting foodgrain stocks from Punjab and alleged that it did not pay attention to the matter despite being brought to its notice in the past few months. Sond alleged that the Centre was meting out step-motherly treatment towards Punjab and held it responsible for the current problem. “Lifting of previous stocks has not been done. We have been making requests to the Centre for many months, but they paid no heed,” Harbhajan Singh said.

Harjot Bains claimed that the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre was punishing the farmers for their agitation against the now-repealed farm laws. However, Union Minister of State Ravneet Singh Bittu claimed that the AAP government was pinning the blame on the Centre “to hide their failures”.

“It would have been better if the Punjab ministers and MLAs had spend time in mandis of the state rather than holding protest in Chandigarh”, he said. The Union minister said the Centre has already given more than Rs 44,000 crore to the Punjab government for crop purchase, but the AAP dispensation was unable to discharge its duty. On Tuesday, Punjab minister and senior AAP leader Aman Arora accused the BJP-led Centre of taking revenge on farmers for protesting against the three now-repealed farm laws.

“They are deliberately slowing down the lifting process to create difficulties for farmers and commission agents,” Arora alleged in a statement. He also lashed out at the BJP-led Centre for not evacuating foodgrain stocks from Punjab, alleging the state has no space in the warehouses to store fresh crops.