Shiromani Akali Dal Congratulating Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath
Chandigarh: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today while congratulating Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath for turning his commitment into reality by allocating money for complete loan waiver in one go in the State budget, said the Congress government must tell Punjabis why it had refused to do the same and even betrayed and backstabbed farmers by allocating Rs 1,500 crore for them despite a standing loan of Rs 90,000 crore. In a statement here, former minister and SAD spokesman Dr Daljit Singh Cheema said the Uttar Pradesh chief minister had kept ten per cent of his budget aside to fulfill his poll promise. “This money will be given to banks to redeem farmer debt”. Dr Cheema said in stark contrast, the Congress government had allocated Rs 1,500 crore in its budget recently to waive off crop loan. He said this was a travesty as such because crop loan is usually taken for a six month period. “Since farmers repay and take this loan again to help in purchase of inputs for the next crop there are few defaults”. The Akali leader said the real sufferers who needed relief were those who had taken term loans for one year and more. “These farmers, who are the ones who have committed suicide, have been ignored and left to their own”, he added. Asking chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh to contemplate on the massive fraud he had effected on the farming community in Punjab, Dr Cheema asked him to explain why the Congress government could not come out with a farmer and rural centric budget like the UP government. “You had promised to waive off all loans taken by farmers, be it from cooperative or nationalised banks or even arhatiyas. Even the khet mazdoor was looking up to you for delivering some relief to him. You however betrayed everyone by making the excuse of financial stress even though you knew the exact position of State finances before taking over the reins of the State”. Asking the chief minister to learn from his UP counterpart, Dr Cheema said the UP government had arranged funds by checking extravagances even as it did not compromise on fiscal discipline. “You could have also done the same but you did not do this because you did not have any intention of keeping your promise. You only made these promises to hoodwink farmers to secure their votes. You can never show the same commitment to farmers as S Parkash Singh Badal who gave free power facility to farmers for agri operations in the first cabinet meeting of his government after promising the same in 1997. Even now you tried your best to delay provision of any relief to farmers and finally announced a fake scheme in the name of loan waiver. Punjab’s peasantry will never forgive you for this treachery”, Dr Cheema added. —PTC NEWS
