Sukhbir Singh Badal asks Punjab CM to call special session to revoke amended State APMC Act

Chandigarh [India], September 22 : Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Tuesday asked Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh to hold a special assembly session immediately to revoke the amended State Agriculture Produce Markets Committee (APMC) Act of 2017.
As per the official statement issued by SAD, Badal asked Singh to hold a special assembly session to revoke the amended APMC Act "saying the chief minister should not practice deceit with farmers by shedding crocodile tears at their fate while he is the author of the same legislation in Punjab and continues to stand by his own anti-farmer Act."
It said that the SAD president asked the Chief Minister to tell the farmers of Punjab about why he is refusing to rescind the State APMC Act, 2017 which he has implemented in Punjab.
In the statement, Badal also asked the chief minister if he could show the moral courage to disassociate himself from the Congress manifesto of 2019 which called for removing the APMC Act altogether.
He further asked the chief minister to apologize to the farming community for encouraging corporatization of the farm sector by accepting the Montek Singh Ahluwalia committee report which calls for reducing the procurement of food grain and asked him to scrap the committee and reject its report which he termed as a death warrant for Punjab farmers.
"The SAD President said the special assembly session should also discuss the Congress party's role in the framing of the agricultural ordinances which became Bills recently. He said the chief minister was a member of the high powered committee which framed the ordinances and even sent finance minister Manpreet Badal to participate in a meeting of the committee in Mumbai," said the statement.