Khattar, Captain locked in wordy duel over farm stir

Chandigarh : A verbal battle continued between the Punjab chief ministers and Haryana on Tuesday over the ongoing farm protests as controversy raged over police action on cultivators three days ago in Karnal and farm groups issued an ultimatum to the state government.
In a hard-hitting response to his Haryana counterpart’s tweets questioning him on farmer welfare measures, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Tuesday ripped into ML Khattar’s claims, trashing them as a pathetic attempt by the BJP leader to cover up the sustained and persistently shameful treatment meted out to farmers by his government.
Terming Khattar’s claims and questions as nothing but a shoddy defence against the nation-wide criticism of the latest in the series of violent assaults on peacefully protesting farmers by his government, Captain Amarinder said the various statements made by the Haryana chief minister in the wake of the brutal lathi-charge on his own state’s farmers had once again utterly and unequivocally exposed the BJP’s anti-farmer mindset.
Instead of apologizing for the unprovoked and unjustified attack on the farmers, Khattar had been brazenly defending the police action and even tried to vindicate the Karnal SDM’s shocking instructions to the cops, which the world had seen and condemned, said the Chief Minister.
Rebutting the atrocious assertions of the Haryana CM that his government had done more for the farmers than the Punjab government, Captain Amarinder asked Khattar “if that is the case, then why are your own state’s farmers angry with you and your Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)?” Having failed to convince the people of India that it was Punjab and its farmers who were responsible for the prolonged agitation against the Farm Laws at the Delhi borders, Khattar was now resorting to blatant lies and exaggerated claims, Captain Amarinder said, adding that indulging in this petty data crunching will not condone Haryana government’s excesses against the farmers.
Far from ensuring the welfare of farmers, the Khattar government had actively damaged their interests, said the Punjab Chief Minister, countering the former’s claims with a list of pro-farmer initiatives and schemes initiated by his government despite the fiscal mess he inherited from the BJP-SAD government back in 2017.
“Your party left us without money even to pay our employees, and yet, we have successfully waived off Rs. 4624.38 Crores in debt of 564143 Small and Marginal farmers till date, with another Rs. 590 Crore sanctioned for loan waiver of 2.85 lakh landless farmers and labourers,” quipped Captain Amarinder, dismissing Khattar’s nonsensical claims of leading a pro-farmer government.
Ridiculing Khattar’s proud assertion that his government was paying 12% in interest against delay in payment, Captain Amarinder said that in sharp contrast to Haryana, farmers in Punjab were getting their payment directly into their accounts within 72 hours, eliminating the need to pay interest. “It is your government’s shoddy management of the whole procurement process and your typical apathetic attitude towards the farmers which causes the payment delay in the first place,” he quipped in response to Khattar.