Punjab: Farmers Show Black Flags To Preneet Kaur In Patiala As BJP Candidates Continue To Face Protests

Farmers expressed their dissatisfaction by displaying black flags during the rally of Preneet Kaur, the BJP contender for the Patiala Lok Sabha constituency, in Samana town on Sunday.

A file photo of BJP candidate Preneet Kaur

Source : PTI

Farmers voiced their discontent by waving black flags at Preneet Kaur, the BJP candidate from the Patiala Lok Sabha seat, and chanting slogans against the BJP-led central government while she addressed party workers in Samana town on Sunday. The protesting farmers, associated with Bharti Kisan Union (Ekta Ugrahan) and Kirti Kisan Union, staged a demonstration against Kaur upon her arrival in Samana for the party event.

According to police sources cited by news agency PTI, a few demonstrators were detained temporarily and later released.

At Samana (Patiala), farmers gathered to show black flags to BJP candidate Praneet Kaur were detained.
Farmers blocked the Patiala Hisar highway passing in front of Samarat Palace, surrounded the bus of detained farmers and forced them to leave. #Boycottbjp pic.twitter.com/4Lp04NfhJu

— Surjeet Singh Phul (@phool_surjeet) April 14, 2024

Farmers had previously protested against Kaur. Farmers also protested against BJP candidates Hans Raj Hans and Taranjit Singh Sandhu, who are from Faridkot and Amritsar, respectively, a few days ago. When they were campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections, they were confronted with black flags.

Under the banner of Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), farmers have pledged to oppose the BJP and urge people to "punish" the saffron party in the Lok Sabha elections.

SKM, which led the 2020-21 farmers' protest, has formulated an 11-point questionnaire demanding reasons for the absence of a legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP) and restrictions on farmers' access to Delhi.

Kaur, the current MP of Patiala, recently joined the BJP and is contesting from the same constituency. She was suspended by the Congress in February last year following her husband Amarinder Singh's decision to join the BJP. Kaur has previously represented the Patiala seat in 1999, 2004, 2009, and 2019.

'Centre Significantly Benefited Punjab Farmers': BJP's Ravneet Singh Bittu Dismisses Protests

Ravneet Singh Bittu, the BJP candidate from Ludhiana, dismissed the protests against party nominees in some Punjab villages as "politically motivated." He asserted that the BJP government at the Centre has significantly benefitted Punjab farmers over the past decade.

On the contrary, the Bhagwant Mann-led AAP government in Punjab has done nothing for the farmers, the three-time MP claimed.

During their assembly election campaign in 2022, AAP leaders claimed that if voted to power, their government would give MSP on all 22 crops and address other farmers' demands immediately, Bittu claimed.

However, he claimed that nothing had been done for the Punjabi people by the Mann administration. The BJP leader opined that the "politically motivated" protest against party candidates would phase out eventually.

He accused AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal and his party of deviating from every promise they made to the people of the country from Ramlila Maidan during the Anna Hazare movement.