The Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today demanded the setting up of a Special Court under the chairmanship of a sitting judge of the Supreme Court to go into the entire conspiracy of the tragedy of 1984 Sikh carnage and the deliberate shielding of the culprits and delay in execution of justice.Winding up the debate on the motion of thanks to the Governor's address in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha, the Chief Minister categorically said that his party was not averse to the setting up of SIT to probe into the 1984 Sikh genocide but at the same time he maintained that it should not be constituted by the Congress. He further demanded that in case SIT was required then it must only be formed under the Judicial direction and supervision to expedite investigation and prosecution in all other cases related to this massacre. He also vehemently pleaded that all the closed case be reopened and FIRs be filed on the basis of complaints and records already available besides setting up Fast track courts to ensure speedy trial of all the guilty involved in various cases related to 1984 riots. The Chief Minister also demanded that adequate compensation should be granted to all the victims liberally. Training guns at the state Congress leadership, S. Badal asked them to atleast listen the voice of their conscious for ensuring justice to the victims of 1984 carnage, which has been so far eluded for over three decades, rather playing in the hands of the perpetrators of this worst of worst kind of sin against the humanity and those responsible for Operation Blue Star in Sri Harmandir Sahib. Without mincing any words he said, “Guilty are well recognized, and they belong to Congress party only, which has been even openly admitted by the Congress Vice President Mr. Rahul Gandhi.”Underscoring the need for setting up of a genuinely federal structure in the country, S. Badal demanded that the constitution should be re-casted on federal lines with powers for states and complete financial autonomy to them for their development works. In the light of this guiding principle to grant fiscal autonomy to the states, he demanded that the key word ‘Federal’ should be added to the preamble of the constitution.
Making a forceful plea for devolution of funds to ensure balanced growth and development of the states, he said that Funds should be devolved in an untied manner – without conditions imposed on states as conditions imposed by centre make development plans impracticable for states. He further said that Central Sponsored Schemes should be scrapped, and the same money should be given to States to make their own development plans and schemes according to local needs.Reiterating that States should get 50% share in central taxes collected from respective states, S. Badal emphasized on the need to recast the formula for devolution of taxes among states, with priority given for development, for the presence of SC and the weaker sections population.Chiding the opposition for running away from the healthy debate on the Punjab issues by staging repeated walk outs, the Chief Minister said that he had already predicted that the Congressmen would not listen to his reply because they all lack courage to face the truth because what their leaders said during the debate was far from reality, illusionary and totally baseless just to gain cheap popularity in the media.
Badal said that he had been ever propagating the politics of consensus to generate goodwill, friendship and amity amongst the fellow legislators whereas, the Congress believed in the politics of confrontation which always generated animosity, hatred and ill will. S. Badal said that he could well read the frustration looming large on their faces as they were leaderless and seemingly had no future at all. Citing the examples of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and others, he said that it was a harsh reality that Congress has never voted back to power again where it has been routed twice and he guaranteed that it would also face the same fate in Punjab. Felicitating the Punjabis for maintaining communal harmony and peace in the state, the Chief Minister said that despite our long and hostile border with Pakistan on one side and disturb conditions in Jammu & Kashmir on the other our state has always emerged as an oasis of Peace and communal harmony, which was our biggest achievement and was made possible only with firm administrative approach and political commitment.Demanding an early resolution of interstate issues primarily including the transfer of Chandigarh and Punjabi speaking areas, left out of the state to Punjab, S. Badal also raised the issue of river waters and asked the Centre to settle this long pending dispute as per the national and internationally accepted Riparian Principle without any further delay.
Lashing at the Centre for its apathetic and discriminatory attitude towards Punjab, S. Badal said that it had always betrayed Punjab on every front, be it agriculture, industry and even on the infrastructure development. He said that Central policies were inimical to the interests of Punjab and they deliberately devised stringent parameters for the eligibility of the centrally sponsored schemes and grants to exclude it from their ambit of eligibility criteria. Holding the tax concessions given to the neighboring states by the Central government for the Flight of capital from existing units, S. Badal said that it has given a major setback to industry thereby causing huge unemployment problems and thus demanded the same concessions for Punjab being far more worthy of it as a border state. He also sought special Package to compensate for the loss already suffered by Punjab.He however, said that the Centre merely showed lip sympathy towards our hard working Punjabi farmers for their contribution in the national food pool but never bothered to make a substantial hike in Minimum Support Price (MSP) in view of ever accelerating costs of agricultural inputs including diesel, fertilizers and pesticides. S. Badal ridiculed the centre for cheating the farmers of the country by denying them MSP on 22 crops out of total 24 listed for it. Expressing special gratitude to the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh for responding positively on the proposal put forth by the state government to set up state of the art Dr Homi Bhabha Cancer and Research Institute in the Medicity in Mullanpur at a cost of Rs 450 crore, the Chief Minister said that this hospital, coming up with the personal initiative and unstinted support of Prime Minister, would help the state in its ongoing crusade against cancer. He said that the state government has already allotted its prime land of 50 acres free of cost for this project. Badal also briefly outlined the significant achievements and path breaking initiatives of his government in the field of agriculture, industry, Health care services, social welfare, education, power, law & order and others.