Coming down heavily on the Parkash Singh Badal Government, the Punjab Congress on Friday said that it stood thoroughly “exposed” on the issue of Central assistance with the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley categorically rejecting its case of higher financial assistance, arguing that the devolution to Punjab was already higher by 99.36 per cent.
“This has vindicated our stand that the UPA Government headed by Dr Manmohan Singh had always gone out of the way in the matter of allocation of financial assistance to Punjab while the Badal Government had all along been alleging discrimination,” said the State Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa.
He said that Badal and his son Sukhbir Badal had been selling dreams to the people that Punjab would get truckloads of money after the change in regime at the Centre ending this discrimination. “They should tell the people as to why were they misleading them and where all those trucks have been diverted,” he asked.
Referring to Jaitley’s advice of “rationalising power subsidy” which in essence amounted to withdrawal of free power to the farm sector, Bajwa called upon Badal to share with the people as to what his Government intended to do with this suggestion.