Badals let anti-nationals hijack farmers’ protest

He five suspected terrorists, two of whom were allegedly involved in the murder of Shaurya Chakra winner Balwinder Singh in Punjab, were arrested on Monday in east Delhi’s Shakarpur area after an encounter and have revealed Pakistan spy agency ISI’s attempt to link up terror outfits in Kashmir with Khalistan operatives, police said.

According to the police, the two are from Punjab, while the remaining three are from Kashmir.

Singh, who received the Shaurya Chakra for fighting militancy, was shot dead in October.

Police said three pistols, two kg of heroin and Rs1 lakh in cash were recovered from them along with the two cars in which they were travelling.

“During preliminary investigation, it has emerged that there was an attempt to link up terror outfits active in Kashmir with Khalistan operatives by Pakistan’s ISI,” says the police.

The three Kashmir-based men were supplying money to the other two to carry out targeted killings. The money was from the sale of drugs.

“They were selling drugs and the proceeds were used for financing terror in Punjab,” police added.

Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh, who is also apprehensive of the unholy alliance of the Shiromani Akali Dal with ISI-backed Khalistan activists, on Friday asked SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal to explain the specific issues surrounding the agriculture laws. The chief minister also accused the SAD chief of trying to hijack the farmers’ agitation to push his own party’s agenda.

The chief minister said Badal should refrain from commenting on the farm laws till he gives satisfactory answers to the three questions, the answers to which every single farmer of Punjab wanted to know.

“Why did Harsimrat Kaur Badal not oppose the farm ordinances when they were first approved by the union cabinet, of which she was then a member? Why did Sukhbir not support the state government at the all-party meeting he (Captain Amarinder) had convened to evolve a consensus against the anti-farmer legislations? And why did the Akalis boycott the Vidhan Sabha session in which the other parties (barring BJP) had voted in favour of the resolution on the agricultural laws?”

Captain Amarinder said he had been posing these questions to the Badals for the past several weeks but the Akali leaders had been persistently ignoring them.

Reacting to Badal’s so-called request to the prime minister to talk to farmer organisations and to listen to the voice of the people, the chief minister asked why he did not remind the PM of his responsibility towards farmers all those years he was with the BJP.

Also, Badal has been shifting stance ever since the protests started. First he wanted Prime Minister Narendra Modi to address the farmers by holding direct talks with farmer organisations so as to find a solution which was acceptable to all.

And when the government offered talks without preconditions, they said they only want the laws to be repealed, which means forcing the Badals’ agenda on the government.

The fact that farmers are not the force behind the protests and that the direction of the stir is anti-government became evident after the leaders of the tractor march rejected all proposals put fourth by the centre even as tge centre is aggressively trying to reach across to the farmers' unions and allay the fears.

The leaders of the anti-government protests are trying to avoid direct talks between farmers and the government for fear of their coming to terms, which could spoil their chances of cornering the Modi government. 

Farmers,  especially the small farmers, have been made to understand the farm legislations are solely intended to serve the interests of traders and big corporates whom the local mandis and the APMCs tried to ward off from exploiting farmers.

An apprehension has been created in their minds that the safety net of minimum support price (MSP) provided by the centre and the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) established by state governments to ensure farmers are safeguarded from exploitation by traders will be done away with.

Anti-nationals are using gullible farmers to fight the government!