Badal has no right to govern Punjab, says Congress

The Punjab Congress on Tuesday said that the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had lost every right to govern the State with his inability to set up the Fifth Pay Commission for the Government employees and pensioners due to financial bankruptcy. The State Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa ridiculed Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal “for his refrain that the State is on a sound footing and the bankruptcy is just a propaganda being resorted to by the Opposition to malign the Akali Dal-BJP Government”. 

“For all practical purposes, the State Government has ceased to govern. The Badal Government has utterly failed to provide basic needs to the people like sanitation. What is worst that this Government has failed to maintain even a holy city like Amritsar which has been listed by the Modi Government amongst the dirtiest in the country,” he said. 

He added, “Nothing could be more shameful for the Akali Dal Government and all the more so for Badal, who is heading the Government for the fifth time. Amritsar having been categorised among the dirtiest of cities is his only legacy…Badal should resign on moral grounds owing this responsibility for this approach towards the city which is the mecca of Sikhs.” 

Bajwa said that the situation in Amritsar and the inability to set up even the Pay Commission had come as final indictment of the Akali Dal-BJP Government. “Here is a Government in which even a Chief Parliamentary Secretary from Amritsar had to stage dharna to draw the attention of the Government on the deteriorating situation in the holy city,” he said. 

The State party chief pointed out that Sukhbir had been announcing one project after other for Amritsar but now he personally stood exposed on both the counts as he had gone to the extent of making presentation only a few months back claiming that Punjab was financially strong and financial crisis was only a figment of imagination and motivated propaganda to malign the Government. 

Bajwa reiterated the demand for white paper on state’s economy that should also include the central assistance to Punjab during the UPA regime as compared to the present situation. “Both the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister must publicly admit that they had failed and the Modi Government had further failed them,” he added.