CHANDIGARH: Asserting that a scamster like him had no moral right to make allegations against others, the Punjab Congress on Friday vowed to bring Agriculture Minister Tota Singh to his nemesis for his role in destroying the lives of thousands of farmers across the state.
It was ironical that the man who devastated a large number of Punjab’s farmers with his complicity in the supply of spurious pesticides to cotton farmers had been entrusted by the Shiromani Akali Dal government the task of countering the success of the Congress farm debt waiver campaign.
The Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC), in a statement issued here, said a panic-stricken Badal government was now resorting to all kinds of mindless tactics and baseless allegations to defend itself against the onslaught of the successful Congress programme.
“But the least it could have done was to find someone other than Tota Singh, who was himself neck-deep in corruption controversy and accused of providing fake pesticides to the farmers, to defend itself, ” said PPCC leaders Gurpreet Gogi and Ravneet Bitu.
Tota Singh has been trying hard and unsuccessfully to defend himself against charges of violation of norms in the purchase of Oberon pesticide by the state agriculture department, after an inquiry report found serious irregularities in the matter. “But the farmers of Punjab know the truth and will not forgive him for plunging their lives into a state of despair, ” said the Punjab Congress.
The fake pesticides have led to large-scale destruction of paddy since these pesticides have failed to prevent black hopper (kala tela) from attacking standing crop. This has forced farmers to crop prematurely with moisture. The resultant glut of the crop in the markets has further aggravated the woes of the farmers, who are facing serious issues in procurement of their paddy at MSP, according to the Congress leaders.
Reacting to the allegations of a fraud in the Congress farm debt waiver scheme, the PPCC leaders dismissed the charges as totally unfounded, saying the Akalis should first get their facts right before shooting through their mouths. There are 40 lakh rural households in Punjab and the Punjab Congress debt waiver door-to-door campaign has embarked on a mega outreach programme to connect with each of them, they said.
A total of 29.3 lakh rural households had already filled the maangpatras to endorse and extend their support to the campaign. These include farm labourers, many of who are also burdened by severe debts. In addition, with fragmentation of land within families, there are several cases of multiple land owners living in the same household but with their own separate debts to manage and pay off. The scheme, said the PPCC leaders, is all-encompassing and covers all these people. The Congress manifesto will provide details that will leave the SAD leaders with no leg to stand on, they added.
The Congress leaders pointed out that the success of the campaign could be gauged from the fact that hundreds of volunteers across the state have now joined party workers in taking it to the doorsteps of the remaining households to fill in the maangpatras, said the PPCC leaders.
Referring to the senseless allegations by Tota Singh and other SAD leaders, they said this only goes to show how panicked the Badal government is over the political situation in Punjab which is now completely tilted in the favour of the Congress.
The fact that even the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has now initiated a similar campaign to reach out to farmers with the promise of debt waiver clearly endorses the success of the Congress programme, said the PPCC leaders.
PPCC president Captain Amarinder Singh has already vowed to rescue the farmers of the state from the vicious grip of debt, on the lines of the debt waiver scheme launched by UPA government in 2009 and also by his own government in Punjab in the case of cooperative banks.
The party, said the PPCC leaders, has never reneged on its promises to farmers earlier and will not do it again, which the SAD and AAP clearly know, and which is the reason for their knee-jerk reactions and allegations.