Amarinder targets Badal for not waiving farmers’ loans

CHANDIGARH: Lashing out at chief minister Parkash Singh for failing to waive farmers’ loans, state Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh said his party would relieve the farmers of this burden if voted to power.

“Just because you are too incompetent to provide any relief to the farmers does not mean no one else can do,” he said, reacting to Badal’s reported statement that he (Amarinder) was misleading farmers by promising them loan waiver. Nobody expected Badal to waive loans as the state had been pushed into a debt trap of over `1.25 lakh crore, he said. “A government, which cannot pay salaries and pensions to its employees, is not expected to waive loans as it needs financial skills which Badal has exhausted for amassing personal wealth,” Amarinder added.

He reminded the CM that during his term between 2002 and 2007, he had settled farmers’ loans taken from cooperative banks. “Badal owes an explanation to the farmers as why he did not carry forward our policy,” he said.

Reacting to Aam Aadmi Party MP Bhagwant Mann’s statement saying that the Punjab Congress was also controlled from Delhi like his party, the Amarinder said: “The Congress being a national party has a national set up headed by the Congress president Sonia Gandhi. She doesn’t interfere in state unit functioning, it is the PCC president who is in control of the state,” he said.