Chandigarh, Dec 24 (IANS): Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann on Tuesday slammed the BJP-led Union government for stepmotherly treatment of farmers by not even giving them an opportunity to air their genuine demands.
In a statement, the Chief Minister said the ‘self-proclaimed’ global leader Narendra Modi “is more worried about intervening in the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine but the Prime Minister is apathetic towards the food growers of the country”.
He said the Union government has been blatantly ignoring the genuine demands of the farmers of the country which is highly deplorable.
Mann said, “It is unfortunate that the Prime Minister is more worried about emerging as ‘global leader’ by intervening in international affairs rather than resolving the issues faced by the countrymen”.
The Chief Minister reminded PM, Modi, that when the country was facing a serious crisis in food production, the hard-working and resilient farmers of the state had made the country self-reliant in grains.
He said the farmers of the state had even overexploited the only available natural resources in terms of fertile soil and water, just to fill the national food pool.
However, Mann said that despite the immense contribution of farmers, the Union government has adopted a completely hostile attitude towards them, adding that it “is strange that the Union government is not ready to talk to farmers sitting 200 km away from the national capital”.
The Chief Minister advised the Centre to shun its “haughty attitude and open way for dialogue with the agitating farmers”. He said the Centre should not wait for any special moment to talk to the farmers; rather it should embrace the farmers and redress their grievances.
Mann said that it is the need of the hour that the issues of the farmers are addressed at the earliest in the larger public interest.
The farmers have been camping at Shambhu and Khanauri borders between Punjab and Haryana since February 13 in support of their long-pending demands, including a legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP) for crops, loan waiver and reforms to improve conditions in the agricultural sector.