Union minister Ravneet Singh Bittu on Thursday launched a scathing attack on Punjab chief minister Bhagwat Mann over the detention of protesting farmers from the Shambhu border.
The detentions come as the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government continues to hold talks with the protesting farmers. Several farmer leaders were detained by the Punjab police on Wednesday evening while returning from one such meeting. Bittu, who is the only member minister from Punjab in the Narendra Modi government, accused Mann of working at the behest of Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal.
“Tu sirf Kejriwal de ishareya te nachda (You only work on Kejriwal’s signals),” Bittu was quoted by ANI as saying.
The Union minister went on to say that the people of Punjab won’t let the CM enter any village in the state.
“You put the entire Punjab and farmers at stake just to remain in power. You’ll see that nothing will happen to Kejriwal, but the people of Punjab will not allow you to enter any village,” he added.
Bittu alleged that the Mann government didn’t want the talks between the centre and the farmers to conclude. He said that he had a conversation with Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and he, along with Piyush Goyal were shocked to hear that action was being taken against farmers with whom they “positively” concluded the talks.
“I condemn this action of the Punjab government. They voted for you, and Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann should be ashamed. They (the AAP government) did not want a solution to be found through talks between the central government and the farmers. You detained farmers just to win the Ludhiana West by-election,” ANI quoted the Union minister as saying.
