Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has decided to pull out of BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) because of the centre’s stubborn refusal to give statutory legislative guarantees to protect assured marketing of farmers crops on MSP and its continued insensitivity to Punjabi and Sikh issues, SAD said today, according to ANI.
The Shiromani Akali Dal has quit the NDA over the farm Bills issue, SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal announced today (September 26, 2020). He made this big announcement after holding a core committee meeting of the party in Delhi. Badal said that the highest decision-making body of the Shiromani Akali Dal core committee at its emergency meeting today unanimously decided to pull out of the BJP -led NDA alliance, PTI reported.
As per SAD’s statement, Badal said that the decision to quit the NDA was taken “because of the Centre’s stubborn refusal to give statutory legislative guarantees to protect assured marketing of farmers crops on MSP and its continued insensitivity to Punjabi and Sikh issues like excluding Punjabi language as official language in Jammu and Kashmir.”
SAD is the third major NDA ally to pull out of the grouping after the Shiv Sena and the TDP.
Badal also said in a statement that SAD will continue to stand by its core principles of peace, communal harmony and guard the interest of Punjab and Punjabi in general, and Sikhs and farmers in particular.
The SAD chief further said said the decision was taken in consultation with the people of Punjab, especially party workers and farmers. He added that the Bills on agricultural marketing brought by the BJP-led government were “lethal and disastrous” for the already beleaguered farmers.
He also said the SAD was the oldest ally of the BJP, but the government did not listen to it in honouring the sentiments of farmers.