DW BUREAU / chandigarh Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Thursday slammed SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal over his "fixed match" allegation, terming it as totally absurd, and accused the Akalis of playing the BJP's game to "ruin" the state's farmers. "Who am I playing a fixed match with?" asked the Chief Minister. After playing all those "fixed matches" with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the farm laws issue, Badal seemed to have become "so obsessed" with the phrase that he had even forgotten that a fixed match cannot be played solo, the chief minister said. Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief Badal had earlier accused the CM of playing a "fixed match" by deliberately delaying bringing in legislation in the Punjab Assembly to negate the farm laws. "If anyone is playing a fixed match, it is the SAD, which continues to act at the behest of the BJP," alleged the CM in a statement here. The CM also derided Badal's remark that the Akalis will compel his government to do anything, considering that, by their own admission, they had "failed" to persuade their own government at the Centre not to bring in the "anti-farmer" laws. The Badals have made a "laughing stock" of themselves and their party with their "senseless statements and outrageously false claims" on the issue of the agricultural laws, he said. He said SAD's own former ally, the BJP, had already publicly declared that the Akalis had fully supported the legislations from the day one. "The Badals' lies and double standards had been totally exposed not just to Punjab and its farmers but to the entire nation," alleged Singh. Pointing to the SAD chief's remark that he (CM) had rejected Badal's suggestion on calling a special session for a state legislation to negate the farm laws, Singh said there was no question of accepting or rejecting a suggestion made after he himself had categorically announced that he was exploring that option. "In any case, who is Sukhbir to give a suggestion to the state government after he openly refused to support us in rejecting the farm ordinances during the all-party meeting, and asked his MLAs to stay away from the Vidhan Sabha session at which we passed a resolution against them," asked the Chief Minister. Meanwhile, Union minister Jitendra Singh on Thursday said the new agriculture reforms will bring ease of living for farmers, particularly those living in far flung, remote and hilly areas. During an interaction with farmers, sarpanches, panches and local activists of panchayats falling under different blocks of Ramban and Udhampur districts in Jammu and Kashmir, he said the new farm legislation is a revolutionary new opening for the farming community, particularly for the farmers living in remote areas and border areas, who are faced with constraints of inaccessibility and lack of transport. "The new arrangements will open up alternative options for them," said Singh, the Minister of State for Personnel. Many of the farmers in the past stored their crop after harvesting and waited for some middlemen to pick it up and carry it to the market because they did not have sufficient means or resources for that, he said. However, under the new arrangement, the farmer will be able to avail the option of arranging a buyer through different sources or even entering into a contract agreement for farming, the minister said. Contrary to the propaganda by the opposition parties that the Modi government is inclined to close down the existing Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) centres and mandis, Singh said, the matter of the fact is that the process of opening new centres is going on even today at different places depending upon the requirement and the demand, according to a Personnel Ministry statement. However, he said, the young educated and tech-savvy agriculturist of today cannot be tied down by the earlier arrangement and deserves the freedom to exercise his option, the statement said. The Centre has not purchased crop produce at minimum support price (MSP) from farmers of Delhi in the last five years and this has forced them to undersell their produce, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) claimed on Thursday. The BJP, however, said that the AAP was trying to mislead farmers. AAP spokesperson Raghav Chadha in Delhi claimed that Delhi government ministers, officials and mandi (agricultural market) presidents have written letters to the Union agricultural minister in this regard, but no action has been taken by the Centre. "After 2015, the central government has not purchased even a single crop from farmers of Delhi, let alone be it on the MSP. The farmers of Delhi were left to get plundered by private players," he told reporters. "2015 was the last year when the Centre had purchased wheat produce from farmers in Delhi. It has been 5.5 years, and the Narendra Modi government has not purchased the produce, not even of a single rupee," Chadha said. The AAP leader claimed that Delhi's farmers are at the "mercy" of private players because of insensitivity and fake promises. "Not a single institution has helped our farmers in the last five years, which has forced tfarmers to undersell their produce," he said. (editor@dailyworld.in)