Gandhinagar, 5 August 2013

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today talked to his Punjab counterpart Prakash Singh Badal and briefed him in detail about the self-explanatory facts about Sikh farmers of the Kutch district of Gujarat for the last several decades.

Mr. Modi despised certain vested interests trying to malign Gujarat Government by spreading canards, distorting truths by political adversaires that his government has adopted a discriminatory attitude towards the Sikh farmers from Punjab tilling land in Kucth. He said that although the issue is sub-judice his government is committed to ensure no injustice was done to the Sikh farmers over the matter of land. There is no question of sending them back to Punjab.

He said that Gujarat Government is not exerting any pressure on them; rather taking all steps to make sure the Sikh community lived peacefully in Gujarat, including Kutch. He recalled that the issue was created by the then Congress government 50 years back following a ordnance and notification in 1973.

This was in response to representatives of Sikh community who after personally meeting Mr. Modi at Gandhinagar yesterday evening expressed their satisfaction at the Gujarat Government’s approach. They denied newspaper reports that their lands were being usurped. They said that Sikhs were being targeted to malign the Modi Government and that they were not a party to such canards.

Leader of Sikh community of Lakhpat taluka in Kutch Jugraj Singh has also communicated in a letter to Mr. Modi that they were living in peace along with members of other communities and enjoying Gujarat Government programmes.

Mr. Modi further said that the Congress party has no right to say anything about the Sikh community as the former was responsible for mass carnage of the Sikhs in New Delhi in 1984. He described the Congress concern about Sikhs in Gujarat as crocodile tears.

He said that nearly 50,000 Sikhs lived peacefully in Gujarat intermingling with other communities, contributing to the state’s development. He recalled that when the Gurudwara in Lakhpat was razed to the ground during the earthquake in 2001, it was the present State Government that rebuilt the Gurudwara – acknowledged as world heritage architectural masterpiece.