‘BADAL, NDA DUPING FARMERS ON SUBSIDY’
Monday, 11/08/2014
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JALANDHAR: The Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) spokesperson Nimisha Mehta on Monday called the recent diesel subsidy a joke on the farmers in the state and said the farming community was paying the price of chief minister Parkash Singh Badal’s vested interests in the BJP-led central government.
The centre had recently announced a subsidy of ` 420 per acre for rain-deficit states. Mehta termed this ‘grossly insufficient’ and, in a press release issued, questioned why the CM failed to take up the issue of insufficient subsidy with the centre.
“In 2009, when the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) gover nment announced a drought subsidy of ` 800 crore, the CM had termed it ‘step-motherly treatment’ towards Punjab. Out of that, ` 600 crore was siphoned off by his government in the name of power subsidy. Only the remaining ` 200 crore was distributed among farmers. But, when the BJP government at the centre announced a paltry ` 420 per acre as subsidy, the Badals have failed to raise their voice.”
Lambasting deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal, Mehta said that while campaigning for the general elections, he had promised the people to bring ‘trucks loaded with money’ from the central government, if Modi was elected to power.
“Where are these truck-loads of money?” she asked. She said the Badals had traded the state’s welfare for a cabinet post for Harsimrat Kaur Badal (wife of deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal).
