Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Sunday said that the election results of five states declared recently has set the trend that the Congress would be gradually decimated from the Indian polity.
Badal, addressing the media persons on the sidelines of death anniversary of state cabinet minister Surjit Rakhra’s mother, said that the way Congress has been routed from the electoral scene in the recent assembly polls to five states except Pudducherry was reflective of people’s mood to get rid of its anti-poor policies.
Buoyed with confidence, Badal said that it was writing on the wall that Congress would also meet the same fate in the coming Punjab Assembly polls in 2017.
Asked to comment on any possible financial package to the state by the Centre, the Chief Minister quipped that BJP-led NDA government has already given several prestigious projects like AIIMS, IIM, Horticulture Institute, Amritsar and ludhiana as smart cities besides giving heritage status to Amritsar and have never denied us anything asked for.
Even the Centre has also hiked states’ share in its financial resources from 32 to 42 percent, from which Punjab has also been immensely benefitted.
Clearing the mist over the issue of shortage of wheat stocks, Badal said that the state government had already satisfied the Centre with facts and figures as the Punjab was undertaking procurement of food grains on behalf of the Food Corporation of India (FCI)-the Centre’s nodal agency.
Badal said: “Had we defaulted on this issue, then how the Centre has cleared the cash credit limit for the procurement of current wheat procurement season.”
He lamented that the opposition parties both Congress and AAP were making hue and cry over it besides blowing this issue out of proportion just to capture headlines in the media, whereas the state government had already clarified this issue not once but several times its factual position through advertisements in newspapers and hoardings.