BJP national gen secy faces backlash for calling agitating Punjab farmers ‘Urban Naxals’

AMRITSAR SAHIB, Punjab—The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national general secretary Tarun Chugh is facing backlash from the civil society of Indian union for calling agitating Punjab farmers “Urban Naxals”.

While addressing a small meeting of the party workers in his home turf, Amritsar central assembly constituency, Chugh stated that the “Urban Naxal” are spearheading the agitation against three farm laws legislated by the saffron party-led union government of Indian union. The meeting was held to make the people aware of the so-called benefits of the laws.

However, there was hardly any farmer in the meeting. Chugh also asked the audience to use social media for spreading the positive impact of the laws against which thousands of farmers have converged at the borders of Delhi for the last around month. He also stated that the agitating farmers want to disrupt development activities in Punjab.

Notably, the national level leader of the saffron party could not organize a big gathering even in his stronghold.  He has faced a debacle from this assembly segment in the assembly elections twice.

Earlier, the BJP leaders have termed the agitators “terrorists”, “anti-national” and “ISI-backed”.  These malicious and derogatory terms are inviting criticism for the BJP worldwide.

‘PARTY THAT CAN’T DISTINGUISH BETWEEN CITIZENS FIGHTING FOR THEIR RIGHTS AND TERRORISTS HAS NO RIGHT TO RULE’

Lambasting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over these tags, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Sunday asked the party to stop maligning the farmers and their genuine fight for justice by calling them offensive names like `Urban Naxals’, `Khalistanis’, `Hooligans’ etc.

“If the BJP cannot distinguish between anguished citizens fighting for their survival and terrorists/militants/hooligans, it should give up all pretense of being a people’s party,” said the Chief Minister. A party which treats citizens exercising their democratic right of protest as Naxals and terrorists has lost all right to rule over those citizens, he added.

Hitting out at Chugh over his petty description of farmers in Punjab as `Urban Naxals’, Captain Amarinder said with these remarks, the BJP leadership had hit a new low in its desperation to promote its political agenda. He pointed out that such protests by angry farmers were taking place not just in Punjab but also in BJP-ruled states such as Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. “Do the farmers protesting in all these places look like Naxals to you? And does that mean law and order has collapsed everywhere?,” he asked Chugh.

“What is being seen in all these states, as well as the Delhi borders, is the sorry fall-out of the BJP-led central government’s failed policy on Agriculture, and its mishandling of the situation triggered by the farmers protest,” said the Chief Minister. Instead of heeding the plea of the `Annadatas’ and responding to their concerns, the BJP was busy trying to demean them and stifle their voice, he lamented.

The Chief Minister noted that the farmer leaders themselves believed, and were stressing, that it was imperative for the success of their movement to ensure that it remains peaceful. “Is that the language of Naxals, as Chugh is alleging?” he asked, dubbing the BJP leader’s remarks as a shameless reflection of his own cheap and vicious mentality.

In sharp contrast to the BJP, the Congress believed in upholding the people’s Constitutional right of peaceful protest, which even the Supreme Court had validated in the context of the farmers’ agitation, the Chief Minister said. “But the BJP and its leaders like Chugh seem to be bent on stifling all such protests with their brazen lies and false propaganda,” he added.

The Chief Minister also took a dig at Chugh’s plea to the Union home ministry ‘to keep an eye on such developments in Punjab’, saying that it would been better for the state if the BJP leader had sought the Centre’s support in keeping any eye on the fresh spurt of terrorist movement, as well as smuggling of weapons, in Punjab.

SAD ASKS STATE BJP TO APOLOGIZE FOR SLUR AGAINST FARMERS

“It is reprehensible that the Punjab BJP unit has fallen so low that it is calling the farmers of the State urban naxals. This insult is intolerable and I advise the Punjab unit to take back this slur inflicted on the ‘annadaata’ immediately and apologize for the same”, SAD Kisan Wing President Sikandar Maluka said in a statement here.

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