The Punjab Congress on Thursday alleged that Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was entering into political alliances only to “protect” his vested business interests rather than on any ideological basis.
“Akali Dal is in alliance with the BJP in the State and at the Centre but the party is opposing its own alliance partner in neighbouring Haryana where it is in partnership with the Indian National lok Dal (INlD), citing family ties, while in essence business interests are at the core,” said the State Congress chief Pratap Singh Bajwa, while addressing gathering during a political conference.
He said that Badal had been “trading” Haryana Sikhs for business interests of his family and it was for this reason that he had misused every Sikh institution to oppose the formation of the Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee as this was going to end his monopoly.
Bajwa said: “The formation of HSGPC has fulfilled longstanding demand of the Haryana Sikhs to manage their own shrines….The population of Sikhs is second highest in Haryana after Punjab but till now, they lacked such a platform and hence they were getting ignored.”
Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) chief announced that the Congress would launch agitation shortly on the issues concerning the farmers, the immediate one being reduction in the moisture limit from 15 to 14 per cent which would create problems, especially in the context of late monsoons.
“This step of Centre will virtually destroy the rice shelling industry in Punjab and farmers will have to face lot of hardships to sell the paddy crop,” he said.
He also charged Badal Government with frittering away allocation of Rs850 crore made by the UPA Government to the State to deal with the problem of water-logging and floods. “Heavy rains have again created havoc in parts of Malwa region and Badal must explain as to where that money has been diverted,” said Bajwa while demanding white paper on funds’ utilisation released by UPA for this purpose.