Former Punjab Chief Minister and Congress candidate today had a dig at the Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal and his Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal for selling fake dreams to people of Amritsar about Arun Jaitley becoming the Deputy Prime Minister and the Finance Minister who can cure all the ills inflicted by them on Punjab.Addressing a series of public meetings in the villages Thobah, Tehri and Chugawaan falling under Ajnala and Raja Sansi assembly segments, Capt Amarinder said, first of all Jaitely is not going to win as is more than obvious from the mood of the people of Amritsar. “Probably Badals believe that Jaitley either has a magic wand or has got some currency note-printing machine and he will flush them with money”, he remarked.
He stated that the Badals have a proven record of failure and misgovernance. He pointed out, during the last seven years since they took over, Punjab could not manage to get a single project from the Government of India worth its name. “The one they got was shelved since they could not provide the matching grants”, he disclosed.
Replying to Badal’s allegations that this was because the Congress led UPA government discriminated against the Akali-BJP government in Punjab, Capt Amarinder retorted with facts and figures to nail his (Badal’s) lies.He revealed that between 2007 and 2013 the same Congress led UPA government had provided Rs 12,000 crores to Gujarat ruled by the BJP, Rs 8000 crores to Karnataka which was mostly ruled by the BJP during this period, Rs 12,000 crores to West Bengal which was earlier ruled by the Left parties and later by the Trinamool Congress, both opposed to the Congress. “If UPA had no problem with these states why should it discriminate against Punjab?” he asked.At the same time the former Chief Minister explained, this money was granted to the states after they submitted their proposals and projects with a provision for the matching grants. Compared to that, the Congress leader added, Punjab submitted just two projects which got cancelled since they could not provide the matching grants. “Now let you ask Mr Badal who is responsible he of the UPA government?” he asked, while adding, Badal had a habit of lying and pleading discrimination and persecution.He was accompanied by senior leaders including Sukh Sarkaria, Harpartap Ajnala, Gurjeet Aujla, Paramjit Singh Sarna, Harpal Singh, Parshotam Singh, Major Rajbir, Baldev Singh Sarpanch and others.