Parkash Singh Badal returns Padma award over farm laws
CHANDIGARH: Akali Dal stalwart and former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal on Thursday returned his Padma Vibhushan award in protest against the Centre’s new farm laws.
In a separate announcement, dissident Akali leader and Rajya Sabha member Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa also said he will return the Padma Bhushan conferred on him last year. Earlier, some former Punjab sportsmen too have threatened to return their awards.
Badal’s move has come two months after his Shiromani Akali Dal pulled out of the BJPled National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the Centre, in protest against the three laws which deregulate the sale of crops.
His daughter-in-law Harsimrat Kaur Badal had also quit the Union Cabinet as protests over the farm bills erupted in Punjab, where the party is in opposition.
“I am who I am because of the people, especially the common farmer. Today when he has lost more than his honour, I see no point in holding on to the Padma Vibhushan honour,” Badal said in his letter to President Ram Nath Kovind.
Badal received the Padma Vibhushan award, the country second-highest civilian honour in 2015.
A SAD statement said Badal returned the Padma Vibhushan in protest against the “betrayal of farmers” by the central government, and the “shocking indifference and contempt” with which it is treating the “peaceful and democratic agitation of the farmers”.
Thousands of farmers from the state are now camping at the border of Delhi, demanding the repeal of the three Acts that they say will lead to the phasing out of the minimum support price (MSP) system, which the government denies.
In a letter e-mailed to the President Thursday, Badal said, “After Panthic ideals of peace and communal harmony, farmers have been my second religious passion.”
“Everything I have, everything I take pride in, every moment of glory or every office of public service that has been bestowed on me during my long public career has been purely because of my commitment to these ideals in which farmers have remained at the center of everything,” he wrote.
Rebel SAD (Democratic) leader Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa said farmers including the elderly and women are staying put at the Delhi borders.