Ahead of PM's visit, Badal seeks economic & agricultural package
Darpan News Desk IANS, 04 Jan, 2022 12:12 PM
Chandigarh, Jan 4 (IANS) Five-time Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Tuesday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to create the right atmosphere for his much-delayed visit to Punjab by first taking some concrete steps to expose the conspiracy behind the on-going incidents of sacrilege against Sikh faith and resolving the other major political, religious and economic issues facing the state.
Badal in a statement here listed five major issues on which he said a prime ministerial package would lend credence and respectability to Modi's visit to Punjab on January 5.
"As the PM, you would earn a lot of goodwill and my personal gratitude, if before coming here, you announce an economic, political, agricultural and territorial package to meet the demands of the Punjabis."
The former CM also drew the PM's attention to thousands of Sikh families awaiting justice for the massacre of 1984.
Badal said the PM's visit would then truly be a welcome gesture and would heal many past wounds inflicted by successive Congress governments.
The Shiromani Akali Dal supremo said he was making this request on the eve of the PM's visit "just to remind him of his sacred obligations" to the country's food bowl and sword arm, Punjab.
The elderly Badal also demanded a major agricultural economic package to pull the farmers out of the tragic crisis into which they have sunk as a result of agricultural indebtedness.
He said the visit of the PM to the state was always welcome despite being too close to elections to sound genuine.
"But it would be a great gesture if you go beyond optics and announce steps like an inquiry by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court to go into the conspiracy behind the painful series of sacrilegious incidents against Sikh faith and address other issues facing the people of the state."
Badal asked the PM to heed the expectations of Punjabis on the resolution of their other long-standing major demands, including the transfer of Chandigarh and other Punjabi- speaking areas and the resolution of the river waters issue along Riparian principle.
He also drew the attention of the PM to the loss of over 800 lives in the struggle against the three back laws on agriculture and said that these sacrifices must be acknowledged by concrete gestures by the Union government to help their families.
Senior SAD leaders Prem Singh Chandumajra, Maheshinder Grewal and Daljit Cheema on Tuesday said it was most unfortunate that even after admitting that some wrong elements wanted to defame the 'kisan sangharsh', Rajewal had neither secured an unconditional apology from those guilty of hooliganism nor subjected them to the process of law.
The Prime minister further said that the visit would be an occasion to consolidate relations with our strategic partners - Japan and Australia - and to take forward our collaboration on important global issues. In a departure statement, the Prime Minister said he will be visiting the US from September 22-25 at the invitation of President Joe Biden.
The Director-General of WHO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that it is an important development in support of reaching the 40 per cent vaccination target in all countries by the end of this year.
The charge made by the BJP functionary comes a day after Kejriwal during his visit to poll-bound Goa on Tuesday, announced 80 per cent reservation in private sector jobs, Rs 3,000 and Rs 5,000 doles for the unemployed youth and families who have lost employment due to Covid respectively as well as setting up of a Skill university in the state.
Even as he reiterated his intention to counter any move to make Sidhu the state's Chief Minister face, Amarinder Singh said he will pit a strong candidate against him in the 2022 Assembly polls to ensure his defeat.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders in Goa have been engaged in a war of words and pre-poll announcements over the last few months ahead of the state Assembly polls, which are due in the coastal state in early 2022.
