Punjab’s main opposition party, the Congress, on Thursday demanded a special Assembly session on the State’s actual fiscal position.
The party has, in fact, demanded to table the facts in the House regarding the grants received and utilised by the State Government during the regime of UPA and NDA Governments.
Making this demand, the leader of Opposition in the assembly Sunil Jakhar urged the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to discuss the State’s financial conditions and to lay down the facts on the table of the House pertaining to the grants received and its utilisation during the regime of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, from 2004 to 2014, and present incumbent Narendra Modi Government and the previous NDA Government from 1999 to 2004.
“Chief Minister himself accepted that Punjab has been suffering from poor financial conditions in the House and the State Government is in the dire need of special economic package from the Central Government. People of the State have the right to know the actual financial condition of Punjab,” he said.
Jakhar mentioned that Congress-led Central Government had put the Punjab State in to the category of the States with poor financial conditions during 13th Finance Commission. “Now, the BJP-Akali led Central Government did not mention about Punjab in the reports of 14th five-year finance commission (2015-2020),” he said.
“Being a State with poor financial conditions, former Congress Prime Minister never denied help to Punjab and Chief Minister himself, a number of times, have quoted about the support by the Dr Manmohan Singh for Punjab. Prime Minister had sanctioned projects worth Rs2240 crore to tackle the problem of wet areas in Punjab, even after election code with permission of Election Commission of India,” he said.
Jakhar blamed that the BJP-led Central Government has cancelled the projects, which was sanctioned by the previous UPA Government and their allies, ruling Shiromani Akali Dal, even could not expressed their objections over the anti State decisions.
The senior Congress leader asked the Chief Minister to stop distribution of public money over “their sycophants during Sangat Darshan”.
“Instead of criticising the Congress Government or Congress party, he should express his objections over their ally political party BJP for adopting anti-Punjab policies and by distributing special economic packages to other States,” he said.