DW BUREAU / Chandigarh

A day after Punjab Congress leader Partap Singh Bajwa claimed that 32 ruling AAP MLAs were in touch with him to switch sides, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann Tuesday asked him to focus on keeping his party's legislators together. Bajwa had also claimed that Mann was in touch with the BJP. "When (Arvind) Kejriwal decides to remove him, he (Mann) will pack his bags and join them (BJP)," he had claimed.

Winding up a debate in the Assembly on a resolution against the Centre's draft National Policy Framework on Agricultural Marketing, Mann lashed out at the leader of the opposition for his "baseless statement" about AAP MLAs and termed it a rhetoric to hog media limelight.

"They are into establishing contact with other MLAs but do not have any contact with their own," said the chief minister in a jibe at the Congress.

Mann said that ever since he assumed office, Congress leaders have been claiming that he will not remain chief minister for six months or one year. "A day after the Delhi assembly polls, they again claimed that I will be replaced," the chief minister said.

Asking the Congress to introspect, he said, "You scored a zero for the third time in Delhi. You set your house in order. There are four to five groups (in Punjab Congress)." Hitting out at Bajwa, the chief minister said such leaders unabatedly issue such irrational statements but never raise the issue of the Punjab before the Union government.

During Congress rule, the chief ministers were the "most inaccessible, corrupt and inefficient leaders due to which they were rejected by the people", he alleged.

People have seen the previous chief minister only on a few occasions in the state as the "epicurean monarch" was either busy in his personal works or was glued to his chair in the palace, Mann said.

On the draft agriculture marketing policy, Mann said it was outrightly rejected by the Punjab government as it was totally against the interests of the state.

"Though Prime Minister Narendra Modi boasts a lot about the initiatives taken by his government for food growers, he and his government are inimical to farmers, especially those from Punjab," he alleged.

"The hatred against Punjab is largely because the Centre had to take back this law, which was an unprecedented action," the chief minister said.

For farmers of Punjab, procurement of wheat and paddy at minimum support price (MSP) is the most crucial issue and the draft policy is totally silent about this, he said.

(editor@dailyworld.in)