TDS deduction on farmers’ compensation amount a stab in their back: Bhagwant Mann

Captain government responsible for long-pending dues of cane growers: AAP

Chandigarh, May 4

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab unit chief and Member of Parliament from Sangrur, Bhagwant Mann has stated that the tax deduction at source (TDS) in the compensation amount being paid to farmers for acquiring their land for the construction of a road to the Kartarpur corridor was an anti-farmer decision. He demanded the union and state governments should review the anti-farmers’ decision, who were already grim battling financial crisis.

In a statement issued from party head quarters in Chandigarh here on Saturday, Mann said that such dictatorial decision only reflected the anti-farmer face of the union government led by Modi and Captain Amarinder Singh Government in the state.

AAP MP further said that the Captain government had miserably failed to allow complete waiver to the distressed farming community, releasing their pending sugarcane dues and depriving them of the MSP by dilly-dallying on the implementation of the recommendations of Swaminathan Commission, besides imposing a cut of Rs 4.60 on the pretext of wheat grain being ‘discoloured’.

Mann added that now the TDS deduction on the amount paid as compensation on their acquired land for was a case of gross injustice with the beleaguered community which was battling odds due to the stubborn stance of the preceding governments, he said.

Taking a potshot at Captain Amarinder Singh, SAD (B), union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, and Congress Party’s star campaigner and Punjab cabinet minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, Mann said that they were vying with one another to take credit for the historic decision on the Kartarpur corridor. Why were they reluctant to hold the farmers’ hand instead?, he asked.

AAP leader accused leaders of both the parties of joining hands with one another to protect their own petty political and personal interests instead of standing by the side of the distressed farmers. He appealed to the people of the state, especially the farmers, sugarcane growers, to give a befitting reply to these political baiters by rejecting them in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. He also appealed to the people to strengthen the hands of AAP, which had emerged as a force to reckon with.