Punjab Congress hand-in-glove with urban Naxals: Chugh  

Chandigarh: BJP national general secretary Tarun Chugh on Tuesday held Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh responsible for creating anarchic situation in the state by fomenting discontent among farmers and misleading them on the facts of the three Agriculture bills. He said the Congress workers had been indulging in disgraceful acts of violence and have been instigating farmers to organise rail blockades.

While outrightly condemning the decision of the chief minister to lead relay dharna of the Congress MLAs in Delhi from Wednesday, Chug , in a hard-hitting letter to Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, on Tuesday, said the chief minister was leading the state to anarchy by subverting the democratic norms. Burning effigies of Ravana to hurt the religious sentiments, making calculated attacks on the BJP leaders including me and  the state president Ashwani Sharma, Congress leaders like Ravneet Bittu,MP, owning up responsibility of incidents of violence and arson indicated that the chief minister was violent elements a free hand in the state.

Squarely blaming the chief minister for allowing rail blockades at more than three dozen places in the state, Chugh demanded the state government to be stern in keeping law and order  "It is no point blaming the Centre if you cannot maintain law and order in the state", Chugh said. In the Punjab and Haryana High Court the Centre had informed the honourable judges that the Punjab government was trying to blackmail the Centre on the matter of trains while making no effort to remove farmers' dharnas on railway tracks going on at more than 32 places. The high court had also reprimanded the state government for failing to discharge its constitutional duty. "In this situation how can you blame the Centre for not allowing trains in Punjab?", Chugh asked the chief minister.

  While firmly denying that farmers were equated with Naxals by the BJP as alleged by the chief minister, Chugh said farmers are the lifeline of the nation and the BJP holds them in high esteem. It is violent and subversive elements who have been active during the times of farmers' agitation which is a cause of worry. Repeated incidents of violence against the BJP workers and others clearly indicated that urban Naxals who are hand-in-glove with the Congress are at work.  

In a hard-hitting reply to the letter the chief minister had written to BJP national president JP Nadda, Chugh flayed the Punjab  chief minister for deliberately creating a fuss over the three agriculture reform bills of the Centre by making uncalled for mention of Naxals, railway blockades and the border security forces .

Chugh recalled how the chief minister was instrumental in getting 31 fragmented farmers' unions on a platform on September and guided them to organise dharnas and protests all over the state on September 21 last. The chief minister himself became party to a dharna and gave provocative speaches to instigate farmers.

While lambasting the Congress for not taking any reformative steps for farmers during its rule in the Centre when heavy indebtedness and suicides had started afflicting the farmers, Chugh, in his letter, said  the deliberations on agriculture reforms had started taking place during the times of  Sh Atal Behari Vajpayee as prime minister. There was near unanimity on implementation of the Swaminathan report and it was a normal consensus that farmers be allowed to sell their produce beyond the allocated mandis, and farmers should be encouraged to undertake contract farming to get out of the two-crop cycle to double their income.

That farmers were not exploited in the contract system so a provision was made that contract farming would involve only crops not the land and other infrastructure of the farmers, and in case of dispute, instead of getting engaged in endless and tiring judicial system, the disputes be resolved by local civil officers to protect the interest of farmers..

The Congress in its manifestos in 2017 Assembly elections and later in 2019 Lok Sabha elections had promised to do away with mandis and encourage farmers to get into contract farming.

"If the Modi government has implemented what the Congress had promised to do, what is wrong in it ?", Chugh asked.