Ex-Punjab CM Badal returns top award over farm law

Five-time Chief Minister of Punjab Sardar Parkash Badal returned his Padma Vibhushan award and said he had been deeply pained to see the vicious propaganda unleashed to paint peaceful farmer's struggle as anti-national.

Chandigarh: Former Chief Minister of Punjab Parkash Badal returned the Padam Vibhushan award in protest against the betrayal of the farmers by the Government of India.

“I feel so poor that I do not have much else to sacrifice to express solidarity with the farmers’ cause,” said Badal.

''I am who I am because of the people, especially the common farmer. Today when he has lost more than his honour, I see no point in holding on to the Padma Vibhushan honour,'' the Shiromani Akali Dal leader said in his letter to the President Ram Nath Kovind.

The full text of Parkash Singh Badal's letter

Parkash Badal today returned the Padma Vibhushan award in protest against the betrayal of the farmers by the Government of India and against the shocking indifference and contempt with which the government is treating the ongoing peaceful and democratic agitation of the farmers against the three farm Acts, a SAD statement said.

“When the country honoured me with Padam Vibhushan, I knew that it was only in acknowledgement of my commitment to the people in which the farmers featured most prominently. I owe it to them,” he said.

The full text of Parkash Singh Badal's letter

In his letter to the President, Mr Badal listed his reasons for feeling “hurt and betrayed” by the government’s attitude and actions against the farmers. “ When the Government of India had brought the Ordnances, assurances were given that the farmers’ apprehensions on these Ordinances would be addressed to their satisfaction while bringing the relevant Bills and subsequently the Acts. Trusting these assurances, I even appealed to the farmers to believe the Government’s word. But I was shocked when the Government simply went back on its word.”

The former Chief Minister described the period after betrayal as “the most painful and embarrassing moment in my long political career. I just cannot put in words the pain and emotional stress which I have been going through since then. I have truly begun to wonder why has the Government of the country become so heartless, so cynical and so ungrateful towards the farmers.”

Mr Badal said that he has been deeply pained also by the communal insinuations being thrown at the peacefully and democratically protesting farmers.

He further said as an optimist, he hoped that the President would use his good offices to tell the govt to win the confidence of farmers as well as strengthen the secular democratic fabric of our great country.

Mr Badal reminded the president that he “presides over the destiny of a population 70% of whom are farmers. For over 70 years, these farmers have been serving the country as its “Annadata” with the most selfless and self-effacing humility.”

He also came down heavily against the government saying that while “corporate loans worth lakhs of crores are waived off with just a single thoughtless stroke of the governmental pen, no one has ever thought of even subsiding the farm debts, forget a complete waiver. Instead, the country chose to let its Annadata die.”