Allegations baseless, this shows AAP’s desperation: Capt
CHANDIGARH: Punjab chief minister Capt. Amarinder Singh on Sunday termed as “baseless” the allegations levelled by Aam Aadmi Party that he knew in advance about the promulgation of farm bills and still remained silent.
“These actions show that Arvind Kejriwal’s party is desperate to promote its after rejected by the voters in 2017 assembly polls and every election thereafter,” he said.
Amarinder questioned co-incharge of AAP’s affairs in Punjab, Raghav Chadha, what he was seeking to prove by sharing a copy of the final list of the high-powered committee members, dated August 7 last year, when the original committee (minus Punjab) was actually set up on June 15, the same year.
“Don’t you understand the difference between Punjab not originally being included in the committee and being named a member after I personally wrote to the Centre on the issue? How does flaunting the final list, in which Punjab was included after my intervention prove me wrong?,” said the chief minister.
Taking a dig at AAP for making public RTI response copies, Amarinder said this document, in fact, proved that the farm laws were introduced and implemented by the Centre without the report of the highpowered committee.
Earlier, Punjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal had said that the minutes of the meeting of a high-powered committee show that the three contentious farm bills were never brought up or discussed in “any meeting” with the Punjab government or with any minister from the state.
“The minutes of the meeting with the Union government have already been released and one can see that the farm bills were neither brought up nor discussed nor were they on the meeting agenda,” said Manpreet in a statement, adding that he had released the document in the public domain in September last year.