Punjab Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa on Thursday ridiculed Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal for pleading with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a special financial package to rescue the State from the deepening crisis while he had earlier missed the bus when Dr Manmohan Singh was too liberal and never denied request for the uplift of his native State.
Bajwa also questioned Badal to tell the people of Punjab what is the plight of 15,000 Sikh farmers in the State of Gujarat whose land is being taken away by the Gujarat Government. What has happened to the promise of Modi to take back the SlP filed in the Supreme Court against those Gujarat Sikh farmers, he asked.
“You now must have realised the difference between Dr Manmohan Singh and Modi, who is anti-minorities as even your request for appointment is not being honoured, what to talk of any special package for the State on pattern of Bihar where Assembly election is to be held this year. You have put your stakes on wrong person as you were the first to organise his rally in Punjab when Modi was announced as the prime ministerial candidate,” Bajwa told Badal.
Bajwa reminded Badal that it was the UPA Government that had initiated the moves to bail out Punjab, Kerala and West Bengal which were the three most stressed States, and it was “scuttled by Badal himself for the reasons, which are now known to all and which had nothing to do with the State itself, but rooted in the power politics within the extended Badal family.”
“Why the BJP leadership in the State is not accompanying him to Delhi to press the Prime Minister to announce special package for the State,” he asked. The State Congress chief also lashed out at Deputy CM Sukhbir Badal saying that he should question leaders like the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on drug menace in the State.