PROTEST DHARNAS ACROSS PUNJAB ON April 5 AGAINST ANTI-FARMER, ANTI DALIT POLICIES OF AMARINDER GOVT: SAD
SUKHBIR SINGH BADAL GIVEN FULL POWERS FOR PARTY DECISIONS ON DSGMC POLL
PUNJAB DRIFTING INTO ANARCHY WITH MURDERS, LETHAL ASSAULTS AND EXTORTIONS; CORE COMMITTEE
Chandigarh April 3 – The Shiromani Akali Dal today announced it would organize demonstrations in every constituency across the state on April 5 to protest against the Amarinder Singh-led Congress government’s decisions to break the back of the beleaguered people of Punjab, especially the farmers, the traders, the poor, the dalits, the employees and the unemployed youth.“The protest dharnas will focus on the back breaking hike in domestic power tariff from Rs Five to Rs 10 per unit, unbearable state taxes accounting for the bulk of the hike in the prices of diesel and petrol, denial of the Post Matric Scholarship to Dalit students and on the Amarinder-BJP collusion against farmers on Direct payment to farmers as a means to punish the farmers for their peaceful, democratic struggle against the three Black laws. The protests would also focus on the total breakdown of law and order machinery in the state.
A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the Core Committee of the party which met here this afternoon. Party chief Sardar Sukhbir Singh Badal presided.
Giving details of the Core Committee proceedings, SAD President Sukhbir Singh Badal’s Principal Advisor Harcharan Bains said that the meeting strongly condemned “the dastardly lethal attack on the popular farmers leader Rakesh Tikait by BJP activists last night and demanded a high level judicial probe to expose the forces behind the attack. The meeting said that the ‘neither here nor there’ stance taken by the Punjab Chief Minister and the irresponsible anti farmer statements by several members of the BJP were responsible for the attack.
Bains said that that the Core Committee blasted the BJP government at the center for the Union Home Ministry’s communication to the state government seeking to tarnish the image of the Punjab farmers by accusing them of keeping the migrant farm labourers as “bonded labour” and getting them hooked to “drugs”.
A Resolution passed at the meeting described the Home Ministry’s communication to the state government in this regard as “a part of a deep rooted conspiracy to vilify the image of Punjab farmers and create an atmosphere of suspicion and confrontation in the age old cordial bonds between the farmers and migrant agricultural workers. The party also condemned the Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh for maintaining a “conspiratorial silence over the Home Ministry’s malicious communication.”
A Resolution passed by the Core Committee here this afternoon accused the Chief Minister of “abdicating his constitutional obligations for the maintenance of peace, communal harmony and law and order. Consequently, the state is drifting dangerously towards conditions of utter lawlessness and violence in Punjab, turning the state into a “wild zone of anarchy with extortions, bloodshed, murders in broad daylight and gangs roaming freely in villages, towns and cities forcing the people to fend for themselves for safety as people’s representatives were being attacked with impunity”. It said the chief minister and his cabinet colleagues were treating their tenure in office as a picnic jamboree at public expense. “Consequently, there is no one to ensure safety and security of people’s lives and property nor anyone for them to turn to for the redress of their grievances.”
The Core Committee “delegated full powers and authority to the party President to take all decisions with regard to the forthcoming elections to the DSGMC.
The SAD Core Committee which met here this afternoon took the state government to task for “breaking the back of the people with ‘insanely high’ domestic electricity tariff and sky rocketing petrol and diesel prices through unbearable state taxes. The party called upon the CM to slash the state taxes by 50% at least and then seek a matching reduction in the central taxes. “Both the center and the state govts are colluding to turn the state government into an “immoral profit-making venture” instead of making Punjab a welfare state.
The Core Committee reminded Captain Amarinder Singh of his sacred oath and the promise to supply power to even the industrial and commercial sectors at less than Rs 5 per unit. But the tariff, it said, had already become double of that amount and it is still rising almost every month. “This is not just betrayal; this is cruelty of the most inhuman kind against the suffering common Punjabis”.
It also condemned the police action against devotees who wanted to take out a religious procession at Gurdwara Sri Huzoor Sahib and demanded that the false cases registered against them be withdrawn immediately.
Core committee members present in the meeting included Balwinder Singh Bhundur, Prof. Prem Singh Chandumajra, Jathedar Tota Singh, Nirmal Singh Kahlon Bibi Jagir Kaur,Janmeja Singh Sekhon, Bibi Upendrjit Kaur,Dr Daljit Singh Cheema, Sikander Singh Maluka,Sharanjit Singh Dhillon,Hira Singh Gabria, Jagmit Singh Brar ,Surjit Singh Rakhra,Baldev Singh Mann & Avtar Singh Hit
