After his Haryana counterpart questioned him on farmer welfare measures, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Tuesday ripped into ML Khattar's claims and termed them 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".
According to a release by the Chief Minister's Office (CMO), Amarinder said the various statements made by the Haryana chief minister in the wake of the alleged lathi-charge on his own state's farmers had once again "utterly and unequivocally exposed the BJP's anti-farmer mindset".
Instead of apologising for the "unprovoked and unjustified" attack on the farmers, the Chief Minister said Khattar had been brazenly defending the police action and even tried to vindicate the Karnal SDM's shocking instructions to the cops.
Rebutting the 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)?"
Pointing out that Haryana does not give a single paisa to its farmers in power subsidy, the Chief Minister said in Punjab, power subsidy of Rs 7,200 crore is being provided every year for agriculture pump-sets of farmers.
As for incentive for crop diversification, his government, said the Punjab Chief Minister, had provided a whopping Rs 9.95 crore to cotton farmers and Rs 4.06 crore to Maize growers in the last three years to promote alternative crops. This, he said, works out to Rs 7690 per hectare and Rs 7,697 per farmer for maize and Rs 4,150 per hectare and Rs 4,600 per farmer for cotton.
( With inputs from ANI )
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