4 Congress MPs walk out of meet with Goyal

Aditi Tandon &

Rajmeet Singh

Tribune News Service

New Delhi/Chandigarh, Nov 5

Four Congress MPs from Punjab today walked out of a meeting with Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal after heated discussions over the genesis of the ongoing farmers’ agitation which has led to disruption of rail traffic in Punjab.

Bajwa, dullo hold separate meeting

Factionalism and lack of coordination in the Punjab Congress surfaced on Thursday when Rajya Sabha MPs of the party — Partap Singh Bajwa and SS Dullo — separately met Piyush Goyal on the same issue

Amritsar MP Gurjit Aujla and Ludhiana MP Ravneet Singh Bittu were the first to walk out of the meeting after the minister said the Punjab Government had prodded the protesters and provoked them into persisting with the agitation. MPs Mohammad Sadique and Santokh Choudhary followed Aujla and Bittu and left the meeting with Goyal.

Speaking to The Tribune, Aujla said, “What the minister said was not acceptable to us. We went to him seeking redress of an urgent issue impacting Punjab but he accused the state government of backing the agitation. The farmers are holding spontaneous protests because they feel their livelihoods are being threatened. What does the Punjab Government have to do with this?” Aujla told The Tribune today, adding that Congress MPs from Punjab objected to the minister’s “intimidating and threatening tone” on the issue and four of them walked out.

Aujla said the rest were about to leave but eventually stayed. “We told the minister that the Punjab Government was doing all it could within the remits of peace to end the farmers’ agitation and could not possibly beat up or book them. That would further precipitate the crisis. We told the Railway Minister that his threatening tone and punitive actions were not helping,” Aujla said.

MP Manish Tewari, however, said no walkout as such had been staged. Candid discussion took place between the Railway Minister and MPs, he said.