CHANDIGARH: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) expressed its utter dismay and disenchantment over the way state’s top leadership was up in arms against each other, leading to a serious crisis. It said that the state sans power minister, especially at a time when the paddy sowing season had already begun, giving the farmers sleepless nights.
In a statement issued from party headquarters in Chandigarh here on Saturday, Leader of Opposition (LoP), Harpal Singh Cheema said that it was yet another glaring example of the Captain Amarinder Singh government’s insensitivity towards the over-stressed farming fraternity in the state.
Cheema said that the farmers were already wrestling with a slew of problems, including the recurring hike in power tariff that the ruling anti-farmers’ regime had effected, stating that it was a statutory obligation on part of the government in the saddle to ensure uninterrupted power supply to farmers, especially when the sowing season was already underway.
Urging the newly-appointed power minister, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Cheema said that he should immediately take charge of the significant power department for larger interest of the farmers and the common who, he said, were left to bear the brunt amid the sweltering heat wave currently sweeping the region.
He further urged the new power minister to assume charge for larger interest of the farmers as certain crucial decisions might have to be taken. He felt that by taking charge of the power department, which was ‘powerless’ for now, would be twice lucky for him and the state, for he would be able to 1) redeem the government’s pledge to provide affordable power to the people and 2) scrap all the all the agreements signed between the erstwhile BJP-SAD government and the private power players, thus salvaging the cash-strapped state from abysmal financial mess.
The AAP leader said that Captain Amarinder Singh and Navjot Singh Sidhu should, instead of indulging themselves in a political slugfest, bury the hatchet opined that Captain should prevail upon the power minister-designate to take charge of the currently ‘powerless’ department to ensure that the already distressed farmers wereno more subjected to suffer due to the ongoing self-created crisis of sorts.