The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), on Thursday, alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is defaming farmers of Punjab on the issue of stubble burning to divert attention of people from Morbi bridge tragedy in Gujarat.

Addressing a press conference, AAP Punjab’s chief spokesperson Malvinder Singh Kang said the BJP is defaming the farmers of Punjab over the farm fire incidents in the state even this time there is a significant slump in these cases as compared to previous years due to concrete steps have been taken by the Punjab government under the leadership of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann.

He said the BJP is doing vendetta politics to take vengeance from farmers for coercing the centre to repeal the draconian three-farm laws last year. Due to this, BJP’s Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has also levelled baseless accusations against Punjab and its farmers.

Presenting the data of north India with a poor Air Quality Index (AQI), Kang said that only three cities of Punjab figure in 32 cities while Haryana has over nine cities in this list, which is the highest numbers of any state across the country.

Despite this, the BJP and the Centre have unleashed slanderous campaigns against hard working and resilient farmers of the state by squarely blaming them for environmental hazards.

Kang said that BJP should clear its stand that why their leaders are silent over far more worst AQI in Faridabad, Manesar, Gurgaon, Sonipat, Gwalior, Indore and other states where the saffron party is in power.

He said the CM Mann had submitted a solution for the paddy straw burning by offering to jointly pay financial assistance to farmers worth Rs 2500 in lieu of not burning paddy straw. He said that instead of accepting this proposal the Centre had blatantly refused to bail out the farmers.

Kang said thanks to sincere efforts of Punjab CM to safeguard the environment, Punjab has covered 31.44 lakh hectare area under paddy this time while Haryana has only 13.90 lakh hectare, still pollution level is rising in the BJP ruling state.

The AAP leader said the BJP government pressurised the officers to register FIRs against farmers for burning stubble through the National Green Tribunal and said this has exposed the double standards and anti-farmers stand of the BJP before farmers and people of the country.