Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, December 27

Lambasting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the malicious and derogatory terms used by its senior leaders against protesting farmers, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Sunday asked the party to stop maligning the farmers and their genuine fight for justice by calling them offensive names like ‘urban naxals’, ‘Khalistanis’, ‘hooligans’ etc.

“If the BJP cannot distinguish between anguished citizens fighting for their survival and terrorists/militants/hooligans, it should give up all pretense of being a people’s party,” said the chief minister.

A party which treats citizens exercising their democratic right of protest as naxals and terrorists has lost all right to rule over those citizens, he added.

Hitting out at BJP general secretary Tarun Chugh over his petty description of farmers in Punjab as ‘urban naxals’, Capt Amarinder said with these remarks, the BJP leadership had hit a new low in its desperation to promote its political agenda.

He pointed out that such protests by angry farmers were taking place not just in Punjab but also in BJP-ruled states such as Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

“Do the farmers protesting in all these places look like Naxals to you? And does that mean law and order has collapsed everywhere?” he asked Chugh.

“What is being seen in all these states, as well as the Delhi borders, is the sorry fall-out of the BJP-led Central government’s failed policy on agriculture, and its mishandling of the situation triggered by the farmers protest,” said the chief minister.

Instead of heeding the plea of the ‘Annadatas’ and responding to their concerns, the BJP was busy trying to demean them and stifle their voice, he lamented.

Pointing out that various farmer leaders had themselves appealed to agitating farmers not to disconnect power to mobile towers, the chief minister said this clearly showed that what was being witnessed on the ground in some places was a spontaneous manifestation of the wrath of farmers who see a dark future ahead as a result of the new farm laws.

He pointed out that kisan unions had clearly stated that they did not want farmers to indulge in such acts. In fact, the unions had advised all protesters, and those standing with the farmers, to port their numbers out of the network of the telecom provider whom they had decided to boycott, he added.

The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) also condemned the Punjab BJP for terming the farmers of Punjab as “urban naxals” only because they were protesting against the anti-farmer policies of the Central government led by it.

“It is reprehensible that the Punjab BJP unit has fallen so low that it is calling the farmers of the State urban naxals. This insult is intolerable and I advise the Punjab unit to take back this slur inflicted on the ‘annadaata’ immediately and apologise for the same”, SAD Kisan Wing president Sikandar Singh Maluka said in a statement here.

The SAD Kisan Wing president said the Punjab BJP should not try to label hard working farmers of the state simply because they had protested against the anti-farmer statements of its leaders.