Asking the defeated and desperate leaders of the Shiromani Akali Dal and the Bhartiya Janata Party to have patience, Minister for Irrigation and Power, Rana Gurjeet Singh today told them that they had destroyed and devastated Punjab beyond redemption and it will take time to bring everything back on track.The mess created in 120 months will certainly not get cleared in less than two months and you will have to bear with us to redeem the situation”, Rana told the Akali-BJP leaders in a statement while responding to their criticism of the government, here today.“You frustration is understandable as your illegally operated buses have gone off the roads, abuse of state resources like illegal sand mining has stopped and liquor business has gone out of your hands”, he reminded the Akalis while taunting them, “we have full sympathies for you over the loss you have suffered during the last two months”.The Minister said, the despair and dejection of the Akali-BJP leaders was also because as they cannot believe that the wheat was procured on time and payments were made to farmers within 24 hours as promised.
“Similarly the drug peddlers, producers and smugglers are on the run, while economy is being brought back on track”, he said, adding that the results were too visible to be ignored and people were feeling happy.“Unlike yours, the Congress government does not work on preference or prejudice as it goes by merit”, he told the Akalis while pointing out how much they (the Akalis) had abused power and victimised the opposition workers and leaders during the last ten years.Quoting an example, he said, while the Akalis released sixty-five thousand tube-well connections during last ten years to their favourites, a number of those were waiting for the connection since 1992. So much so, he added, it had denied the tube-well connections to the Punjab Agricultural University for years and these were released only today.