category Regional, chandigarh, , tags Regional, chandigarh, , DW BUREAU Chandigarh Senior Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Harsimrat Kaur Badal said the Bhartiya Janta Paty (BJP) led union government had failed farmers and the poor besides discriminating against the Sikh community. Participating in the debate on the President s address, Mrs Harsimrat Kaur Badal said the government had failed to double farmer income as promised in 2014. Forget doubling the income the price of all inputs associated with farmers be it be diesel, seeds, fertiliser or tractors have increased manifold.The finance minister has also admitted in the Rajya Sabha that farmer debt has increased by 53 percent in the last six years . Mrs Badal said this had also resulted in increased suicides with the union government itself admitting 136 farmers were taking their lives every day, which translated to 15000 farmer suicides annually. She also disclosed that farmers had to agitate to force reversal of the three black laws and how a commitment made to make Minimum Support Price (MSP) a legal guarantee had not been fulfilled till yet. Speaking to how the poor had got poorer during the last nine years, Mrs Badal said those waiting for the promised Achhe Din were facing a steep rise in inflation, indebtedness and hunger. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has disclosed how indebtedness has increased by 250 percent in the last nine years from an average of Rs 43,000 to Rs 1 Lakh per individual . She said the world inequality report had disclosed how 57 percent of the total national income was controlled by 10 percent of the people and how 50 percent of the lowest strata of society had a total share of 13 percent of the national income. Asserting that the BJP led government was also discriminating against the Sikh community, Mrs Badal asserted a convicted rapist Gurmeet Ram Raheem was being given repeated paroles. We also witnessed remission given to the rapist of Bilkis Bano, However Bandi Singhs, who have completed more than double their sentence with some being incarcerated for 30 years, are not being released . She said this was being done despite a sovereign commitment made by the union government to free all Bandi Singhs on the 550th Birth Anniversary of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji in 2019. Mrs Badal said Sikhs, who had faced discrimination at the hands of the Congress, which attacked Sri Darbar Sahib in 1984 besides conducting a genocide against the community, were now witnessing an attack on their religious institutions under the BJP regime. She cited how attempts were being made to weaken the SGPC and how Gurdwaras in Haryana were taken out of the ambit of the SGPC by forming a separate management committee. (editor dailyworld.in)