Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann made an appeal to the central government on Sunday asking it not to “create a border between India and Punjab”. His remark at a rally in the Tarn Taran district came ahead of the ‘Delhi Chalo’ march on February 13 organised by farmers to press the Centre to accept several demands, including the enactment of a law to guarantee a minimum support price (MSP) for crops.
Commenting on the barbed wires installed at the Punjab-Haryana border, Bhagwant Mann said, “There are as many barbed wires placed from Haryana to Delhi as there are at the country’s border with Pakistan.”
He also asked the central government to talk to the protesting farmers and accept their “legitimate” demands.
“What do you think of us? When you need rice and wheat, where will you go? Will the borders be open for us then? We Punjabi people fill your stomachs. For freedom, we have given the most sacrifices. Consider us as your own. I want to tell the central government not to consider us so alien, not to hate us so much.
In Punjab, they hate us, and in Delhi, they hate Arvind Kejriwal. If they have their way, they might remove the word ‘Punjab’ from the national anthem,” said Bhagwant Mann.
Haryana’s authorities have sealed the state’s border with Punjab at Shambhu near Ambala district, placing concrete blocks, sandbags, barbed wire and anti-riot vehicles on the roads going towards Delhi. Elaborate arrangements have been made at the state’s borders with Punjab in Jind and Fatehabad districts as well.
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said the arrangements were made to maintain law and order. “The kind of agitation they do is not right in democracy and we have seen this the last time,” he was quoted as saying by PTI news agency.
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