Demanding white paper on the State’s finances since 2007, Punjab Congress on Wednesday slammed Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal for “misleading” people on special term loan which “had been waved way back in 2007-08”.
To put forth his point, the State Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa quoted from the information provided by the Union Ministry of Finance to the State Congress’s RTI Cell chairman Jasdeepak Singh under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
“The para five of the RTI reply states that the State Government of Punjab was also given special term loan of Rs5,799.92 crore for combating terrorism relevant to the period 1984-85 to 1993-94. The Government of India has written off Rs9,913.59 crore towards the repayment of these loans and accrued interest thereon. The last of these loans was written off in 2007-08. No conditions were imposed while waiving these loans,” Bajwa quoted from the RTI reply.
“It has become a habit with you to mislead people by resorting to blatant untruths. Here is the letter from the Union Ministry of Finance nailing your white lies. The issue is very serious. You must apologise to the people of Punjab for misleading them all along,” Bajwa told Badal.Bajwa questioned the logic repeatedly being extended by the Badal Government that it was this special term loan which was at the root of all ills afflicting Punjab while the fact of the matter was that it stood waived long time ago.
“Moreover, Badal should also explain to the people as how come his Government had organised a function at Jalandhar after his party came into power in 1997 to thank the Centre for waiving this loan…People’s memory is not that short-lived,” he said.Bajwa reiterated that the state government must come out with a “white paper on the State of finances since 2007 and release the first letter received by the State Government waiving some installments of the special term loan”.
“This is followed by yet another letter waiving more installments. The second letter is received by the Punjab Government in 2006,” he claimed.