Announce loan waiver, implementation of Swaminathan

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh today urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to announce the implementation of Swaminathan Commission report.

"Narendramodi ji, good to know that youll be addressing Punjab farmers today. Please use the opportunity to announce loan waiver & full implementation of Swaminathan report. Our distressed farmers will be braving the heat to hear something +ve from you. Pls dont let them down," he tweeted shortly before Modi was to address a rally in Malout today.

Earlier, Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal had asked the chief minister not to "play politics" over the "historic" increase in minimum support price (MSP) of paddy and other crops.

Senior AAP leader Sukhpal Singh Khaira, who is also Leader of the Opposition in Punjab, however, asked the Badals to seek a debt waiver package before thanking the prime minister over the MSP hike.

"By hosting farmers rally of Prime Minister @narendramodi in Malout, the SAD-BJP is rubbing salt on wounds of Punjab, which is reeling under farmer suicides and drug menace. @AAPPunjab would like to ask...if there is anything to celebrate in Punjab?" another senior AAP leader from Punjab, Kanwar Sandhu tweeted about Modi's rally.

"Instead of wasting money on farmer rally in Malout, @parkashsingh and @sukhbirbadal should have donated this money to families of farmers who have committed suicides in the last 10 years," he said.

Meanwhile, the prime minister launched a scathing attack on the Congress, alleging that it had betrayed the peasantry and used them as vote bank to further the interests of "one particular family".

Addressing the rally at Malout, he said despite toiling hard, farmers could not think of a comfortable life and that they had to live a life of despair and despondency for decades because of the policies of the Congress-led governments.