Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh today said that a Right to Information (RTI) response has exposed the “lies” of the Centre’s claims that the three controversial farm Ordinances ~ which subsequently paved the way for the enactment of three farm laws in September 2020 ~ were approved by the highpowered committee of the CMs on agricultural reforms. Citing media reports, Capt Amarinder said a reply by the NITI Aayog to a RTI query suggested that the farm Ordinances were promulgated and introduced in Parliament in June 2020 without the report of the Chief Ministers’ committee being ever appraised by the Governing Council of the NITI Aayog. This, said the Punjab CM, was in “stark contrast” to the claims of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government, which both the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had been “shamelessly parroting” in an apparent bid to “promote” the BJP’s “anti-farmers agenda”.

The Union minister of state for consumer affairs, food and public distribution, Raosaheb Dadarao Danve had claimed before the Lok Sabha that the high-powered committee of the CMs had approved the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, which Captain Amarinder had categorically rejected and which has now been “proved wrong” by the RTI reply, the Punjab CM said.

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Far from basing the farm laws on the discussions and decisions of the high-powered committee, the point, as validated by the RTI response, was that the committee’s report had not even been placed till now before the Governing Council of the NITI Aayog, Capt Amarinder said.

Once the report is made public, everyone will now know who said what in the committee’s meetings, where Punjab was not even a part in the first one, while the second discussed some financial issues with Manpreet Badal in attendance and the third one participated only by secretary- level officials, the CM said.

He lambasted the Punjab’s Opposition parties over their “campaign of lies, deception and misinformation to promote their collective agenda of instigating the people against the democratically elected Congress government in the state”.

“Their bundle of lies have been completely exposed by the RTI response,” he charged, slamming the BJP, the SAD and the AAP for “shamelessly misleading” the nation on such a sensitive issue which had triggered massive unrest and had the potential of disturbing the peace of Punjab and the country.

Capt Amarinder claimed it was evident now that the Akalis and the AAP had been “spreading lies” allegedly at the behest of the Narendra Modi-led central government, with whom “the two parties were working in collusion to damage the interests of the farmers”.