With an expert group headed by former deputy chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia terming Punjab’s policy of free power to the agriculture sector as “highly regressive” as it benefits only big farmers, the Opposition Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Friday warned the Capt Amarinder Singh-led Congress government of a mass movement if free power is stopped in the state.

SAD president Sardar Sukhbir Singh Badal said his party will never allow free power, introduced in 1997 by the then Parkash Singh Badalled SAD-BJP government, to be stopped.

“If you take a single step towards discontinuing free power to farmers, you must prepare yourself and your government to face an unprecedented mass movement by the SAD to safeguard the interests of the already beleaguered peasantry,” he said.

The expert group was formed by Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to seek suggestions on “medium and long-term post-COVID economic strategy for Punjab”. In its report submitted to the Punjab government, Ahluwalia has also asked it to gradually reduce procurement of paddy from the extremely water-stressed areas.

Rejecting this report for being “inimical to farmers”, the SAD chief claimed that “accepting its recommendations would amount to signing the death warrant of poor farmers”. He said the CM should “realise the gravity of the issue and reject today itself the recommendations of the Congress’ blue-eyed economist (Ahluwalia)”.

Badal also lashed out at the other recommendation of the Ahluwallia-led panel advising the Punjab government to “slow down the procurement of paddy in the state”. “This recommendation of the Congress-loyalist economist sets the cat out of the bag. This is the clinching proof of who really wants to stop assured procurement of farmers’ produce by the government,” the SAD chief alleged.

Badal said these recommendations were meant merely to please “the Maharaja mind-set of the Congress rulers”. He said free power has completely secured our India’s food kitty and saved billions of dollars in foreign exchange alone through self-reliance and export in food grains.

“It is strange that some arm-chair economists, sitting in air-conditioned rooms in the metropolitan cities pretend to understand farm economics better than the generations of farmers who have spent their lives toiling in midsummer heat in the farms,” the SAD chief said.

Badal said farmers were already on the brink of a disaster with the ever-increasing costs of farm inputs and the failure of the prices of their produce to keep pace with the rising costs.