Evacuation in Punjab: Parties play blame game

The issue of vacating border villages in Punjab following the Indo-Pak tension is now turning out to be a major political issue in the state. After maintaining a stoic silence on the issue, political parties in Punjab are now openly blaming each other for politicising the issue.

The ruling SAD-BJP alliance is now facing flak from the Opposition parties — Congress and AAP — as well as from the farmers on borders areas who are not keen on leaving their villages in view of the standing Khariff crop due for harvest within a week or 10 days’ time.

With elections around the corner in Punjab, the political parties are trying to placate the border and the residents keeping in view the sensitivity of the matter. Chief minister Parkash Singh Badal has already urged the Union government to start a special recruitment drive for enabling the youth of the border areas to join the Army. The CM has reiterated that the farmers will be allowed to harvest produce. He said the crops are as dear to the farmers as their children.

And they could not bear this loss at any cost.

Several Congress leaders and legislators representing various Assembly segments from Ferozepur to Gurdaspur on border areas lashed out at the ruling SAD-BJP alliance over forcible evacuation of residents from border villages.

The AAP, which started a helpline for the villagers of border areas, also claimed that only the people living in Punjab are being evacuated when Rajasthan and Gujarat also share border with Pakistan.

Echoing the same sentiment , senior Congress leader from Punjab Sunil Jakhar said, “Either the Punjab government has some special intelligence input or there is something that they do not want to share. The village next to mine is in Rajasthan where there is no alert or evacuation being carried out. Rajasthan has double the length of the border with Pakistan as compared to Punjab.”