Hitting back at the opposition SAD for what it called “political gimmickry” over the recent power tariff hike, Punjab Congress president and Gurdaspur MP Sunil Jakharon Saturday said the Akalis should stage protests in Delhi instead of planning dharnas in Punjab as the Prime Minister and other senior BJP leaders, along with the Badals, were the real culprits responsible for putting this burden on the people.
Addressing a news conference, Jakhar said that this power hike had been forced on the people of Punjab by the Badals, who signed a tripartite memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the BJP-led central government and the PSPCl for hiking power tariff in the state every year.
He said, “the real culprit is Sukhbir Badal, who signed the MoU under the UDAY scheme on March 4, 2016, in the presence of his alliance partner and union power minister Piyush Goyal, and agreed to hike power tariffs in Punjab on a yearly basis in order to implement the Ujwal Discom Assurance Scheme of the GoI”.
As per the UDAY MoU, the Badals had agreed to a 5% hike in power tariff for 2016-17 and 9% for 2017-18. “Political compulsions, in view of the assembly polls, however forced the Badals, who had otherwise raised power tariffs to the tune of 77% during their 10-year rule, to not effect a hike in 2016-17”, he said, adding that they instead resorted to political gimmickry by slashing the tariff by 0.65% in that fiscal.
“If SAD is really concerned about the pains and problems of Punjabis, they should stop misleading the people and hold their proposed dharans at the houses of Badals, Modi and Piyush Goyal, who are the real culprits behind this hike”, said Jakhar.
Responding to a question on the demand by some Congress MlAs for initiating action against Majithia, Jakhar said that the Chief Minister had made it amply clear that the government cannot act without evidence. “Allegations are there but we are looking for evidence that can stand the scrutiny of the courts”, he said, adding that the Congress was sure not to repeat the mistakes that it committed in 2002 by taking hasty action.