Punjab Congress chief and Member of Parliament (MP) from Gurdaspur, Sunil Jakhar on Friday said the Congress party would oppose to any kind of attempt, to put more burden on the farmers by the Union government.

Jakhar took oath in Punjabi language as a LokSabha member on the first day of the Winter Session of Parliament in New Delhi. While interacting with the mediapersons later, Jakhar said that he would raise the issues of Punjab and national importance in this temple of democracy. Gurdaspur MP said, he will take a positive approach in the LokSabha so that this platform could be used to solve the problems of common man of the country. He said that his aim is not to do politics only, but to do something for the betterment of the people of state in general and border area residents in particular.

In response to a question regarding the decision of the Union government to declare farmer’s tractor a commercial vehicle, Jakhar said the country’s farmers are not in a position to bear more financial burden. He also demanded an exemption to tractor of the farmer from taxes to carry food grain of Food Corporation of India (FCI) and other government’s food grain procurement agencies.

Jakhar also opposed the efforts of the Union government to bring the farmers under the ambit of income tax adding that the farmers are already facing acute crisis due to regressive policies of the Union government. He further said that any such decision of Center against the interests of the farmers will be strongly opposed in the lower house.

In response to a question regarding the local government elections in Punjab, Jakhar said the voters of the state will give a crushing defeat to ShiromaniAkali Dal (SAD) and BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP) alliance in the local government elections. Jakhar said the BJP leadership in the state blatantly ignored the interests of the people during the alliance government. He claimed that SAD is now talking about contesting Haryana elections due to visible crushing defeat in Punjab.Jakhar also accused Union minister HarsimratKaurBadal for misleading the people.

He said there is no question of any obstacle by the state government in the establishment of All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS). He said that No Objection Certificate (NOC) in this regard is delayed due to the issue created by previous SAD-BJP government of the state. He said that the previous government has created many hindrances in the smooth execution of this project due to which it has lingered on.