Leaders Condole Dog’s Death, Not Farmers’: Meghalaya Governor Malik Mocks Modi Govt

Addressing the Global Jat Summit in Jaipur, he said if he spoke anything on the farmers’ issue then it would create a controversy.

New Delhi: Asserting the leaders in Delhi offer condolences even when a dog dies but have not cared about the farmers’ deaths, Meghalaya Governor Satya Pal Malik on Sunday said declared he is willing to step down from his post for backing the farmers’ agitation.

Addressing the Global Jat Summit in Jaipur, he said if he spoke anything on the farmers’ issue then it would create a controversy.

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“I am not a governor by birth. I am always ready to lose what I have but I cannot leave my commitment. I can quit the post but cannot see farmers suffering and getting defeated,” PTI quoted Malik as saying.

“Two or three leaders in Delhi made me the Governor. The day they tell me that they have a problem and ask me to quit, I will not take a minute,” he added.

In an apparent reference to the deaths due to various causes of protesters camping on the borders of Delhi for months against the Central government’s farm laws, the Meghalaya Governor said there has not been an agitation earlier in India in which 600 people have died.

“I am hurt that 600 farmers have died but no resolution was passed in Parliament,” he said.

Lashing out at the Central Vista redevelopment plan, Malik said that it would be better to build a world-class college instead of a new Parliament building.

Referring to then prime minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984, he said that he had told Prime Minister Narendra Modi not to antagonise Sikhs and Jats.

“I had told him not to use force against them and not to send them back empty-handed. They do not forget for 300 years. When the Akal Takht was damaged, Mrs Indira Gandhi had got a yajna of mahamrityunjaya mantra performed at her farmhouse because she knew that she would be killed,” Malik said.

“I also told the PM that you should tell the farmers’ I am right and you are wrong but I still accept your viewpoint because I cannot see your suffering,” he added.

Reiterating his suggestion that the issue can be resolved through a guarantee on minimum support price (MSP), the Meghalaya Governor claimed that the Army has felt the impact of the agitation over the central laws as the farmers’ sons too serve in the military.

“Anything can happen. Today, you are in power and are arrogant and do not know what repercussions would follow. When Kargil happens, the sons of these farmers are sent to the hills to fight,” said Malik.

Stating that the people could react to injustice someday, he said: “I do not want the day to come when farmers react.”

The Meghalaya Governor also referred to the Republic Day violence when the protesters headed to the national capital’s Red Fort in their tractors to justify his assertion.

Malik also used the occasion to taunt the BJP leaders in Haryana regarding the farmers' protest and said Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s helicopter cannot land in any village in the state.