Akali Dal quits BJP-led NDA government over newly passed farm bills
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), whose lone minister in the Modi government, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, had resigned while protesting against the new farm bills, the party and NDA's one of the oldest allies on Saturday decided to end its alliance with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The decision by the Akali Dal has come after SAD's core committee meeting which was held in Chandigarh today.
SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal announced the decision to quit NDA alliance. "The highest decision-making body of the Shiromani Akali Dal core committee at its emergency meeting tonight decided unanimously to pull out of the BJP-led NDA alliance," he said.
According to a party statement issued, Sukhbir Badal said the decision to quit the NDA was taken "because of the Centre's stubborn refusal to give statutory legislative guarantees to protect assured marketing of farmers crops on MSP and its continued insensitivity to Punjabi and Sikh issues like excluding Punjabi language as official language in Jammu and Kashmir."
The SAD becomes the third major NDA ally to pull out of the grouping after the Shiv Sena and the TDP.
Badal said the SAD will continue to stand by its core principles of peace, communal harmony and guard the interest of Punjab and Punjabi in general, and Sikhs and farmers in particular.
He said the decision has been taken in consultation with the people of Punjab, especially party workers and farmers.
Badal said the Bills on agricultural marketing brought by the BJP-led government are "lethal and disastrous" for the already beleaguered farmers.
He said the SAD was the oldest ally of the BJP, but the government did not listen to it in honouring the sentiments of farmers.
The Parliament in the recently concluded monsoon session passed the Farmer's Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020.
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