Chandigarh, Nov 2 Farmers’ body Bharatiya Kisan Union (Kadian), which is part of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha, on Monday announced unconditional support to the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) for the 2027 Punjab Assembly election.
BKU (Kadian) president Harmeet Singh Kadian announced this here in the presence of SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal.
“We have conducted a three-month exercise before extending unconditional support to the SAD. We approached all political parties and realised that all of them, except the SAD, do not have any pro-farmer policy agenda,” Kadian claimed
The track record of both Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) governments on farmers is “abysmal”, he alleged.
“The AAP government also reneged on a written agreement with our organisation. It also did not give promised compensation to farmers who suffered huge losses in floods last year as well as hail storms more than six months back.
“Considering all this, we feel that a regional party like the SAD which upholds Sri Akal Takht Sahib, can alone safeguard the interests of the farmers of Punjab,” Kadian said.
BKU (Kadian) was part of the coalition Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) that spearheaded the agitation against the central farm laws in 2020.
The Shiromani Akali Dal had snapped its 24-year-old alliance with the BJP in September 2020 over the now-scrapped three farm laws.
Kadian said the Union had submitted a memorandum to the SAD president seeking the resumption of the Attari-Wagah border for trade with Central Asian countries, crop diversification and encouragement to food processing, MSP for more crops, besides wheat and paddy, crop insurance and stopping outsiders from purchasing land in Punjab.
Badal thanked Kadian for supporting Akali Dal and appealed to all farmers’ and workers’ outfits to back his party.
He also recalled how the union leader’s father, Partap Singh Kadian, who had founded the BKU, had also served as a SAD legislator in 1968.
He assured that all issues highlighted by the Union would be taken up for resolution after SAD forms the government in 2027.
Badal asserted that his party was committed to farmers’ welfare and claimed that no other party had done so much for the community.
(PTI News)
