Govt should postpone Bihar polls, focus on tackling COVID-19: Sanjay Singh

Singh spoke to the media at the Sadarpur village here after meeting a group of farmers staging a protest demanding adequate compensation for their agricultural land acquired by the government. Voting for the 243-member Bihar assembly will be held in three phases on October 28, November 3 and November 7 in one of the biggest elections globally during the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by counting of votes on November 10.

AAP MP Sanjay Singh on Saturday said the Union government should postpone the Bihar Assembly elections and instead focus on tackling the COVID-19 pandemic. Singh spoke to the media at the Sadarpur village here after meeting a group of farmers staging a protest demanding adequate compensation for their agricultural land acquired by the government.

Voting for the 243-member Bihar assembly will be held in three phases on October 28, November 3 and November 7 in one of the biggest elections globally during the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by counting of votes on November 10. The election has been declared in Bihar at such a time when the country is facing a pandemic. Every day, one lakh cases of coronavirus are being detected and around one thousand people are dying but the government is concentrating on elections, Singh said.

The Bihar polls can be postponed by six months due to the pandemic, he added. Assuring the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) support to the agitating farmers, Singh said he would raise all their valid demands in the next session of the Rajya Sabha.

The government is doing injustice with the farmers. Variation in paying compensation for the same land cannot be tolerated. AAP will raise the valid demands of farmers. “The government is acquiring farmers' land at throwaway prices and allotting those to builders at higher prices. There are a lot of glitches in the compensation policy that is why corruption is prevailing," Singh said.

"I will write to the chief minister, agriculture minister and prime minister in this regard and put up a question in the upper house in the coming session,” he added. Due to unfair policy of land acquisition and unequal compensation, farmers are protesting in Jewar and Ayodhya where the agricultural land has been acquired for airports, he said.

He said that the AAP will contest next year's panchayat elections in Uttar Pradesh.

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