Farmers from Malwa open front against AAP: ‘gave you 66 of 69 seats, only ‘badlav’ is of govt’

Earlier on on Tuesday, police has resorted to mild lathicharge to disperse the farmers who had gheraoed the tehsil office at Lambi. The protesters were BKU Ugrahan members had detained the tehsildar and other employees seeking compensation for their crops that got damaged due to pink bollworm.

While police had said that they didn’t do lathicharge but used mild force to rescue the “wrongfully detained” employees, BKU Ugrahan members had said that the police lathicharged them and injured the farmers. The farmers added that even an FIR was registered against 10 identified farmers and 100 other unidentified BKU members. “We are not surprised that they police are now denying lathicharge. In the Malwa region of Punjab, AAP won 66 of the 69 seats and hence a protest rally in this belt in less than a month of government formation is proof that this government is no different than the previous one and that the only ‘badlaav’ it has got is the government change,” Shingaara Singh Maan, senior vice president of BKU Ugrahan, said, adding that Muktsar DC Harpreet Singh Sudan had invited them for talks, but they refused as they wanted to meet CM Bhagwant Mann. “We have been told that the CM might meet us on April 5. So we will wait but till then our protest outside the DC office will continue,” he said.

He added that they wanted to give the government time to perform, “but they themselves created such a situation in Lambi that we had no choice but to protest”.
Meanwhile, at the protest, farmers were carrying placards of Bhagat Singh and had donned yellow turbans and yellow dupattas — a colour that the union has adopted for the past many years.

They have been demanding compensation for the entire cotton belt farmers at the rate of 50% of the crop damage but officials said that compensation was being given to the those who had actual damage and could provide documents.

So far, farmers have not given anything in writing to the authorities and they have alleged that special girdwari was not correct as many farmers were not included. Cotton crop had been damaged due to pink bollworm in September last year during the previous Congress government.