The war of words between the BJP-led Centre and the Congress led Punjab government over the former’s three controversial farm sector Bills, passed recently by Parliament, has continued to rage.

Stepping up attack on the Narendra Modi-led central government on the issue, Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh today expressed shock over Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar’s alleged “atrocious lies” over Punjab and the Congress party’s stand on the contentious agriculture sector Bills, charging that the BJP minister had “clearly shed even the pretence of fairness and honesty in pursuit of his party’s demonic agenda”.

“In his desperation to promote the BJP-led NDA government’s conspiracy to ruin the farmers, Tomar had thrown all propriety to the winds to spread disinformation against the Congress in general and me in particular by peddling shameless falsehoods,” alleged Capt Amarinder.

Reacting to Tomar’s latest remarks on the issue, the Punjab CM termed it as “a pack of outrageous lies”. “The entire statement of the Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare Minister, as part of a reported interview, was nothing more than unsubstantiated allegations, false claims and deceitful verbal assurances, which provided neither any basis nor any reason for trust or belief,” he charged. On Tomar’s question as to “why did he (Capt Amarinder) keep it in his manifesto that Agriculture Produce Markets Committee (APMC) Act will be changed”, the CM said it was “obvious” that the Union agriculture minister had not even read the Punjab Congress 2017 manifesto.

The manifesto had clearly promised that “Updation of APMC Act will be done to ensure direct access of farmers to the national and international markets through digital technology without tinkering with the existing MSP system” and that “Government of India will not be allowed to tinker with the existing MSP system. Instead they will be pursued to effectively implement MSP for other crops i.e. maize, pulses also. Further, it had stated that Agriculture Marketing will be upgraded and digitized with a complete ban on utilization of Mandi Board Funds for purposes other than agriculture marketing”, said the CM.

Capt Amarinder said that “there was a difference between changing the APMC for the better, which the Congress manifesto clearly promised in detail, and destroying the tried and tested APMC system to benefit a few corporate cronies, which the BJP-led government’s new farm Bills were designed to do”.

Even the Congress’s 2019 Lok Sabha polls manifesto also categorically stated that MSP would be protected at all costs and that thousands of markets would be set up by the state governments to provide easy access to farmers for profitable sale of their produce, the Punjab CM said.

“Tell me one place in which your three Bills have made any such promise to the farmers,” he dared Tomar, slamming the Union minister for “spreading brazen lies in an attempt to befool the farmers”. Contrary to Tomar’s allegations, there was no question of going back on the Congress promises, either at the national or the state level, because “at no point did the party make any promise to ruin the farmers, either in 2017 or in 2019”, Capt Amarinder said.