Rift in farmers' front over seat sharing for Punjab polls

Haryana's farmer leader Gurnam Singh Chaduni has expressed displeasure over Sanyukt Samaj Morcha (SSM) chief Balbir Singh Rajewal offering only a few seats to his political outfit Sanyukt Sangharsh Party (SSP) for the February 14 Punjab assembly polls.

Chaduni has made known his displeasure days after talks between his outfit SSP and Rajewal-led SSM for a pre-poll alliance for the state assembly polls.

The SSM had also formed a committee for deciding on the seat-sharing arrangement with the SSP.

Polling for Punjab's 117 assembly seats will be held on February 14 and votes will be counted on March 10.

In a video message, Chaduni said he had demanded 25 seats for his party to contest the state assembly elections but Rajewal's SSM, starting with five seats, sought to offer only nine seats to all other farmers and other workers' outfits associated with his outfit.

The outer outfits are Sanjha Sunehra Punjab, Punjab Kisan Dal, United Republic Party, Taxi union Punjab and Bharti Republic Party, claimed Chaduni, who is the chief of the Haryana BKU (Chaduni).

Chaduni said he will be forced to field candidates of his party on his own if the SSM did not give the SSP its due share of the seats.

On January 9, Chaduni had held talks with the SSM for the poll pact and after that, he stopped the scheduled announcement of his party's 10 candidates for the forthcoming polls.

In the January 9 meeting (with the SSM), we requested them that we should not fight separately. You are ignoring us. We should fight jointly. We also stopped our press conference (for the announcement of candidates), said Chaduni.

Despite forming a committee, the SSM ignored his outfit, said Chaduni.

He said he talked to Rajewal and demanded from him giving a satisfactory number of seats for his outfit.

We do not want that we should fight separately but they SSM are ignoring us, he said.

Chaduni said he had earlier batted for 'Mission Punjab' and had said that farmer outfits in Punjab should fight the state assembly polls.

Various Punjab farmer bodies which had taken part in the stir against the Centre's now-repealed farm laws had launched their political front the Sanyukt Samaj Morcha last month and had announced to contest the assembly polls.

The SSM, which had ruled out any alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party, had announced its first list of 10 candidates on Wednesday.