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Badal asks Amarinder to approach Centre on wheat MSP

Staff Correspondent

Dares Chief Minister to sit on dharna before PM's residence

CHANDIGARH: Shiromani Akali Dal president Parkash Singh Badal has urged Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to use his influence with the Congress-led UPA Government at the Centre to announce a substantial increase in the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of wheat or give Rs. 50 per quintal bonus from the State Government kitty.

In a statement issued here on Tuesday, Mr. Badal said if the Chief Minister's claims about the money available with the State Government were to be believed, he should immediately announce the bonus in addition to clearing the arrears as promised by him in 2002.

Reminding Capt. Singh of his "theatrical stunt of sitting in dharna in 2002 in front of the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's official residence on the issue of paddy procurement'', the Akali president dared the Chief Minister to repeat the act in front of Manmohan Singh's residence now to secure a higher MSP for wheat. "If he sits in dharna in front of the PM's residence now, we hope it won't be a mere photo opportunity but would last till the farmers' demands are fully met,'' the Akali leader said.

Mr. Badal also expressed "surprise and dismay'' at Capt. Singh's justification of wheat import at a time when the Centre was unwilling to buy local grain at a remunerative price. Terming the stand as "betrayal of the farmers' cause'', the Akali leader said the Chief Minister conveniently forgot that he was heading a primarily agricultural State in which economic hardships were driving farmers to mass suicides and that wheat import would only further undermine the interests of these farmers.

"What is the rationale behind a Punjab Chief Minister advocating wheat import that too at a time when procurement is in progress and his claims of a bumper crop in the State this year. His stand coinciding with the arrival of wheat in the Punjab grain markets can only be understood in the light of allegations of massive personal gains at the expense of the farmers of his State,'' Mr. Badal alleged.

The Akali leader also strongly opposed forcible acquisition of farmers' land in the name of development and said that the Akali Dal stood for a mechanism of formulating policies by taking farmers into confidence on all decisions affecting them.

Emphasising that a similar mechanism should be in place for solutions to problems concerning every section of society, he deplored the Chief Minister's confrontationist statements on farmers' opposition to forcible land acquisition in several parts of the State.

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