With the Punjab Government “selling” and “mortgaging” Government properties to run the financial affairs of the State, the Opposition parties in Punjab are gunning for Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his Deputy son Sukhbir Badal.
Congress has time and again lambasted Badals father-son duo for “mortgaging the State” to fetch votes in the name of development and demanded imposition of financial emergency in the State. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday alleged that the wealth and assets of the ruling Badal family have grown many times in the last few years whereas the State has slipped into bankruptcy.
At the same time, the State Government came up with a clarification stating that there was “no financial crunch” in the State and the Government was generating sufficient resources to meet its commitment for salaries and other development expenditure.
Taking a dig at Badals, the former State Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa called upon them to replicate their family model of development as their business had grown exponentially over the years after coming into power.
Expressing apprehension that the entire State would have been mortgaged by the time people throw out this “thoroughly corrupt and degenerated Government” next year, Bajwa demanded that the Centre must declare financial emergency in this border State.
“Earlier, isolated reports used to appear about the Government selling some property to raise funds for the so-called development but what is shocking that even the properties like widow
home that is Gandhi Vanita Ashram in Jalandhar where Mahatma Gandhi too had been mortgaged. There could be nothing more shameful than this,” he said.
“Going by what is happening in the bankrupt State, this Government could mortgage even the people in the state when nothing else is left. This is a shocking model of development as the refrain of the Deputy Chief Minister all along has been that there is no shortage of funds for development works. This fraud with the people now stands exposed with 12 properties including jails having been mortgaged with the banks to mobilise `2,100 crore,” he said.
Bajwa said that such raising of loans could not be justified by any standards and moreover, Sukhbir should disclose the people as to how his business has been
proliferating and why the same model could not be applied to the State.
AAP, in an official statement, claimed that the wealth and assets of the family of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his close family members have grown since 2007. Badal’s party SAD, in alliance with the BJP, has been in power in Punjab since 2007.
Citing news reports, the AAP said that the Badal Government has mortgaged a building premises meant for widows and other Government buildings to take more loans to run the State.
“On one hand, the wealth of Badal family has increased many fold in previous years, while the small scale businesses in the state have been forced to shut down. A huge number of business units have preferred to shift their bases to other States because of the interference of Badal family,” the AAP statement said.
The Badal family has business interests in hotels and resorts, media, infrastructure, agriculture and other fields.
AAP pointed out that the “present scenario is that the Punjab Government did not have enough funds to run daily affairs of the State and the salaries of Government servants have been stalled for many months”.