A day after Punjab Cabinet Ministers walked out of the meeting with the bureaucrats, the Opposition leaders on Sunday reacted to the development citing the “crisis” within the government.
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) said that a constitutional crisis had erupted in Punjab with the Cabinet Ministers expressing loss of faith in the government, while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) asked the Congress Ministers to muster courage to part ways with “incompetent Chief Minister” who was giving all powers to the babus. Punjab Vidhan Sabha’s former Deputy Speaker Bir Devinder Singh also described it as “sordidly serious developments” against the “appallingly arrogant behavior of the Chief Secretary “.
Sad also demanded a CBI inquiry into the multi-thousand crore liquor scam involving sale of illicit liquor in Punjab during curfew by distilleries owned by Congress leaders and their friends.
“It is unfortunate when every State is doing its utmost to combat COVID-19, the Punjab Cabinet is fighting with bureaucrats …With the cabinet not trusting the bureaucrats and vice versa, there is a leadership crisis due to which Punjab and Punjabis are suffering. Punjab Government would do well and stop questioning the Union Government everyday to divert attention from its failures and tell the people why its leaders and their friends were allowed to loot the State exchequer,” said SAD spokesman Daljit Singh Cheema.
Stating that Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh was directly responsible for this state of affairs as he also held the Excise portfolio, Cheema said that the Chief Minister had not only failed to check the illegal sale of liquor during COVID-19 pandemic crisis but had also failed to order an inquiry into this scandal till now.
SAD’s senior vice president Prem Singh Chandumajra said that the incident proved that they were going through deep mental anguish and showed that the Congress was a divided house.
AAP MLA and the Leader of Opposition Harpal Singh Cheema said that it had been proved yet again that there was no government worth the name in Punjab.
“The ‘dummy’ government is being run in a typical royal style through a 'Babu Shahi Kitchen Cabinet' from the farmhouses,” he said while lamenting that elected representatives were roaming around unable to do a precious little to save the State from ruining any further by an arbitrary and unbridled system of governance. “The Captain's 'Kitchen Cabinet', run by the corrupt and sycophant Babus owing allegiance to mafia lords, has taken a heavy toll on Punjab and the Punjabis…The latest example of this menace was that even during the national lockdown, the liquor mafia has been calling that shots under the protective patronage of Capt Amarinder, which is why liquor consumption in Punjab has been increasing by the year, while the revenue has been plummeting consistently,” he added.