Amidst growing tension between the coalition partners in Punjab — Shiromani Akali Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has convened a meeting of six-member coordination panel of the two parties for Wednesday evening.
The meeting was called after the State BJP president Kamal Sharma met Badal at his residence on Tuesday. In more than an hour-long meeting, sources said, Sharma expressed his dissatisfaction over the state government’s way on resolving the issues the BJP had raised after lok Sabha polls.
It is believed that Sharma has requested Badal to effectively take up and find the solutions of the issues the party’s fact finding panel, headed by its senior leader Balram Ji Dass Tandon — now Chhattisgarh Governor, had listed.
It has been learnt that Sharma has also expressed his concern over the re-surfacing of Revenue Minister Bikram Majithia’s name in the drug racket case. It was SAD’s image with its leaders, especially Majithia, facing allegations of being hand-in-glove with the drug mafia that cost BJP a resounding defeat in Amritsar during parliamentary polls.
BJP’s panel pointing out SAD’s “wrong decisions” on imposing taxes including property tax and taxes on trading community, high prices of sand and gravel besides its unavailability, deteriorating law and order situation, and above all, the growing drug menace as issues leading to coalition’s poor performance in Punjab during 2014 general elections.
Besides, the party also listed out delay in VAT refunds, problems faced by industry and trade sector, stamp duty, coupled with burden on urban voters of power subsidy, among others as issues that led to loss of seven out of total 13 seats.