Farmers just an excuse to come to power in Punjab, BJP leader Gautam Gambhir on Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal.
New Delhi:
BJP parliamentarian Gautam Gambhir took a swipe at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal saying his support to farmers was just a ruse to wrest power in Punjab.
The comment came hours after Aam Aadmi Party members said their chief had been placed under “house arrest” for his Monday visit to the Delhi-Haryana border, where thousands of farmers are protesting against the controversial farm laws. The Delhi Police has denied the charge.
“Farmers are just an excuse to come to power in Punjab! Only Arvind Kejriwal can manage to lock himself in his house and then shout “house arrest”,” the former cricketer tweeted in Hindi.
किसान तो सिर्फ बहाना है, पंजाब की सियासत में आना है!
खुद ही घर में बंद होकर हाउस अरेस्ट चिल्लाना, ये सिर्फ @ArvindKejriwal कर सकते हैं
— Gautam Gambhir (@GautamGambhir) December 8, 2020
The Aam Aadmi Party is the second major party in Punjab after the Congress.
Though both parties support the farmers’ demands their leaders have been locked in an intense battle of barbs over their governments’ stand on the “black laws”.
Gautam Gambhir’s jibe came as the BJP upped its ante on opposition parties for supporting demand for repealing the laws, the centre says would reform the agriculture sector, open new markets and increase farmers’ income.
On Monday, while Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the NDA government’s farm sector reforms only offer what the opposition’s to-do list had all along, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath lashed out at opposition parties for “politicising” farm bills.
The attack came as all opposition parties in the country, barring the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, backed the call for Bharat Bandh on December 8 – a day ahead of farmers’ sixth round of talks with the government.
The talks have remained inconclusive till now as the centre showed no signs of calling a special session of the parliament to scrap the laws, but maintained it would amend them to address key concerns.
