Punjab’s Congress government has become a synonym for betrayal and false promises. This was stated by Punjab Bharatiya Janata Party vice-president Harjit Singh Grewal and party state secretary Vineet Joshi here today. The BJP leaders were addressing a press conference on account of completion of Capt. Amarinder Singh’s seven months in office.Taking on the Congress government, the BJP leaders said, “The intentions of the state government towards farmers don’t seem good. The government has done nothing but only made announcements on loan waiver for the farmers. On the first cabinet meeting held on 18th March, 2017, the government only reiterated its commitment towards a full loan waiver in a time-bound manner. Three months later, during the cabinet meet held on 14 June, Haque Committee was announced to look into the matter. Backing out from his promise of full loan waiver, first Capt. Amarinder Singh on June 19 announced a partial loan waiver up to 2 lakh rupees in the Vidhan Sabha. The very next day state Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal allocated a meager Rs 1500 crores in the Budget while the amount stood at 9500 crores as per Captain’s announcement. But since then, no concrete steps were been taken further. Three months later when Election Commission imposed the code of conduct in wake of Gurdaspur bypoll, the cabinet decided to notify the loan waiver on September 20, which in any case was not required at all as it was a work of the agriculture department.
But since Captain wanted to become a messiah among the farmers the decision was made via the Cabinet just to hog the media limelight. Now it’s been a month since notification was made but the status remains the same”. The BJP leaders continued, “After the Gurdaspur bypoll was over, Capt. Amarinder Singh during his meeting with farm leaders at the CM’s residence on October 16 made it clear that farm loans won’t be fully waived off, and didn’t even give any assurance as to when the Rs. 2 lakh waiver would be executed. Miffed over Captain’s behavior, the farm leaders sat on a dharna outside the CM’s residence”.They further said, “After winning the Gurdaspur bypoll, the government did not give any DA to employees and also some categories of govt. employees were not given their monthly salaries. Not only this, Local Bodies Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu unleashed political vendetta against a cable operator and put pressure on the cabinet to impose entertainment tax on the common people. Capt. Amarinder Singh’s government is indulging in political vendetta by using the state police. State machinery was misused during Gurdaspur bypoll and incidents of loot, rape and murder have become a norm in the state during the last seven months. Murder of RSS member Ravinder Gosain is a latest example of deteriorating law and order situation in Punjab”.“We would like to remind that the conditions were same when militancy started in Punjab. Congress was in power in Punjab then and it is here today too”, they said.