WILL FIGHT TILL MY LAST BREATH TO PROTECT PUNJAB FARMERS: CAPT

CHANDIGARH Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Sunday said he will fight till his last breath to protect the interests of the state’s farmers and his government will take the BJP and its allies to court over the new unconstitutional and anti-farmer agriculture bills of the Central government.

“We will fight the draconian ordinances in court as soon as they get the Presidential nod and become laws,” he said, expressing shock at the way the BJP-led NDA government forced the bills through the Rajya Sabha.

The CM questioned the rationale behind putting the controversial bills to voice vote despite strong reservations by the opposition.

The BJP’s so-called watershed moment will be the death knell for agriculture and will endanger the nation’s food security, he warned.

“Every single provision of these bills was crafted to destroy small and marginal farmers. These farmers were nowhere near getting the governmentmandated minimum support price (MSP) for their produce in the open market. It is unfortunate that instead of strengthening the state-led marketing system, as the Congress had promised in its manifesto, the central government had chosen to end it completely,” Amarinder said.

He also lashed out at the opposition for continuing to mislead the farmers by spreading misinformation on the Congress manifesto of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, which spoke of repealing the existing Agriculture Produce marketing Committee (APMC) Act to bring an improved legislation.