Senior BJP leader and Punjab’s former Minister Manoranjan Kalia on Sunday said that Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and the State Congress president Sunil Jakhar must apologise from the people of the State for raising “false bogey” of Rs 30,000 crore food scam during the tenure of erstwhile SAD-BJP Government.
“The then Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president Capt Amarinder Singh and the then leader of Opposition in Vidha Sabha Sunil Jakhar made wild and serious allegations against the then Akali-BJP Government which have been found to be false and unsubstantiated,” said Kalia.
He said that as per the initial findings of the Expenditure Commission headed by former Chief Secretary KR lakhanpal constituted by the present Congress government, “the legacy of Food Credit limit Account that Punjab has been forced to swallow is a systematic rather than willful default by successive Governments”.
“The Food Credit Account is almost Rs 4,000 crore more than what was initially perceived by the state (Rs 30,730 crore),” he added.
The former BJP minister said that since the Congress party has ruled Punjab for more than 60 percent of the period, it cannot escape from the responsibility for omission or commission, if any, or for not pleading the case properly before the Centre, if its own Expenditure Commission concludes it so, as Congress had been in power simultaneously in Punjab as well as at the Centre.
Now, it was Congress' turn to come clean on this issue, he said.