SAD condemns Rahul Gandhi for 'lies' about farm debt waiver in Punjab

In a statement here, senior SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia said it was shocking that Rahul Gandhi had lied and tried to deceive Punjabis and the country by stating that farm loans had been waived by the Congress government. “This is furthest from the truth. The Congress government has failed to implement its promised Rs 90,000 crore loan waiver scheme encompassing national and cooperative banks as well as private money lenders. It has come out with a partial crop loan waiver scheme which has exacerbated the situation and led to more than 900 suicides”.

The Akali leader said Rahul Gandhi was fond of remembering farmers during election season. “This is the reason why he is talked about farmers in Moga today.

However he did not spare one day in the last two years to meet and console even one of the 900 farm suicide victim families whose kin committed suicide after his chief minister reneged on a solemn promise to waive off their loans.

This despite the fact that Rahul found time to visit Madhya Pradesh twice in the space of one year to console farmer families there simply because assembly elections were scheduled to be held there. This very act exposes the double speak of the Congress president and proves how much empathy he has for the distressed farmers of Punjab”, he added.

He said Rahul Gandhi had also chosen to lie on the issue of ‘rozgar’ to youth. He said while Rahul claimed that jobs were being given to youth in Punjab, the opposite was happening. “Jobs are in fact being taken away. As many as 25,000 contractual employees are being denied regularization despite an act being passed to this effect during SAD-BJP tenure.

The Congress promised to create 60 lakh new jobs which came to one lakh new jobs every month. It has not given any. The Congress government has also failed to give unemployment allowance of Rs 2,000 per month to youth and this promise has also been turned into a joke with around 150 youth being given an unemployment allowance of Rs 150 per month”.

Asking Rahul Gandhi not to parrot lies, Majithia said the real position was that farmers were sitting on rail tracks to demand their dues including payment for sugarcane supplied to the state.

“Employees are protesting demanding regularization and their dues including DA installments and implementation of new pay commission. But all these demands are being put down with lathi charges and manhandling of women employees even you (Rahul Gandhi) preside over a public relations show of the Congress party at the expense of the State exchequer. The SAD condemns the manner in which public money was wasted to host a pre-election rally in the name of handing over a few cheques to farmers. The money spent on arrangements and transportation could have been utilized to give much needed school uniforms to students or even compensation to nurses forced to jump off from buildings to register their protest to the most insensitive and indifferent government in the history of Punjab”, he added.

Image Credit: Congress Twitter