The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Sunday declared that it would treat 2016 as the “year of peace and development” (aman te vikas varsh) in Punjab. At the same time, it has dared the Congress and other outfits in the State to accept the Akali’s challenge to go the 2017 State assembly polls on the issue of peace, communal and all round development in the State.
“We know that the Congress and other groups opposed to us have run out of ideas on the larger issues of peace and development and that is why they are using all their energies to focus on some stray incidents to stay in the news. On the contrary, we will go to the people with a performance sheet of the works done by us over the last 10 years, especially those during the current tenure,” said SAD general secretary Harcharan Singh Bains.
Bains said that the Government has focused all its energies on development and results were there for everyone to see giving confidence to seek a vote on performance in the forthcoming bypoll in Khadoor Sahib and later in the general elections to the assembly.
“From making Punjab a power surplus State to putting it on the international aviation map and ensuring direct jobs, and bringing more than one lakh crore investment through two Punjab Progressive Summits alone to creating and giving jobs to over 2.50 lakh Punjab youth and creating employment avenues for another five lakhs during this tenure alone, we have so much positive to talk about that we hardly have the time to indulge in negative agenda finding faults with our opponents,” he said.
He claimed that the people would judge SAD for what they have done on peace, progress and overall and all round development over past five years and not on the basis of what they say about the tantrums and stunts which the Congress and others indulge in. “Our performance on the peace and development fronts will be our agenda and that will be our manifesto,” he said.