BJP district leaders today lent their support to farmers’ protest against the power cuts as they said that the protests, grid gheraos and road blockades being staged by farmers across Punjab against power cuts had “completely exposed Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s claims of eight hours of uninterrupted power supply and a power-surplus Punjab”.
The leaders lending their support to the farmers included Harvinder Singh Sandhu, BJP district president, Amritsar, Dr Ram Chawla, Sukhminder Singh Pintu, Kumar Amit, Salil Kapoor, Mohit Mahajan, Jaspal Singh Shantu, Satpala Dogra, Gopal Verma and Sudhir Shridhar.
Harvinder Singh Sandhu said during the paddy transplantation season, Punjab’s power demand rises to between 14,000 and 16,000 mw, while the reality of the government’s power supply and load management was now visible to everyone.
“Punjab has nearly 1.394 million agricultural tubewells, which form the backbone of its farming economy, yet the government has completely failed to provide them adequate electricity,” he said.
He said while the Mann government had repeatedly claimed to provide farmers with eight hours of electricity, farmers are receiving only 3 to 4 hours of erratic supply. Harvinder Singh Sandhu said the condition of Punjab’s thermal power plants also exposed the government’s lack of preparedness. “Several units at Lehra Mohabbat Thermal Plant remained shut, while the generation capacity of Ropar Thermal Plant also remained under pressure. If the government already knew that demand would reach record levels during the paddy season, why were backup arrangements not made?”
Harvinder Singh Sandhu said the Aam Aadmi Party government was entirely focused on advertisements, social media and image management. “On the ground, there is neither electricity, nor planning nor accountability. This government is not power-surplus — it is propaganda-surplus.”
