Punjab CM Instigating Farmers To Agitate Over Centre's Farm Laws: BJP

Punjab BJP president Ashwani Sharma on Sunday accused Chief Minister Amarinder Singh of misleading farmers and instigating them to agitation over the Centre’s new farm laws.

In a statement here, the BJP president said Punjab farmers were being calculatedly misinformed and misled by the chief minister only to gain political mileage and to cover up his incompetence.

Sharma said goods and passenger trains are not coming to Punjab because the chief minister has miserably failed to maintain law and order.

"On the one hand, he is instigating farmers to intensify their agitation, on the other, he is blaming the Centre for not allowing trains in the state. It reflects the chief minister's blatant hypocrisy and petty political gameplan,” said the state BJP president.

If any losses are happening to the state due to inoperative goods trains, it is the chief minister who is solely responsible for it, he said.

Lashing out at the Punjab government for allegedly failing to remove the railway blockades, he said it is preposterous the way the Punjab chief minister is shifting the blame to the Centre.

Sharma said the BJP had never equated farmers with Naxals.

"Farmers are the lifeline of the country and the legislation brought out by Prime Minister Narendra Modi are meant to empower farmers to an extent that their income is doubled," he said.

The BJP, he said, had been soliciting cooperation from the chief minister to educate farmers in the right perspective and to keep the law and order situation under control.

"But the chief minister is eyeing petty political gains and is indulging in misleading hyperbole,” said the BJP president.