Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Navjot Singh Sidhu on Sunday alleged that the State bureaucracy failed to update data relating the spending of his Member of Parliament local Area Development Fund (MPlAD).
He said that he had spent more fund than the figure mentioned on the State Government’s records and Parliament website, but the same had not been updated.
Sidhu, in a statement issued by his political secretary Gaurav Vasudev, was quoted as saying that the figures which are being taken from the Parliament website “are not updated”.
In fact, Sidhu has spent Rs 14.20 crore out of Rs 19 crore allotted to him and proposals for project of Rs 1.46 crore has already been sent to Deputy Commissioner’s office and copy of acceptance has been received by us.
He questioned Deputy Commissioner’s office for not updating the data and stated “that it is not understood why the actual data is not updated till date by the planning department under DC office.” “The Sidhu couple has always worked for the development of Amritsar city and there should not be any doubt in anybody’s mind”, he stated.
The statement followed the reports about how the former cricketer failed to utilise his sanctioned MPlAD funds for his Amritsar constituency. His performance, according to the data available on the Parliament’s website is worst amongst all lok Sabha MPs in Punjab as he merely used Rs 9.45 crore of funds against sanctioned amount of Rs 19 crore in the current term of lok Sabha. Sidhu is already in the eye of storms for ignoring his constituency and staying away from Amritsar for long.
He had recently hogged headlines for targeting his own BJP-SAD Government in Punjab for ignoring the development works and his detractors now question his dedication to the constituency.
lok Sabha MP from Patiala Preneet Kaur, who is wife of former Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, utilised the maximum funds to the tune of Rs 16.05 crore.
However, Deputy Commissioner Ravi Bhagat claimed that he had already deputed Deputy Economic Statistics Advisor to check the data if there is any discrepancy and they will check if there is any scope for updating the data.