Former Chief Minister and Congress candidate from Amritsar Capt Amarinder Singh today asked BJP candidate Arun Jaitley to check his facts about imposition of property tax in Punjab before putting his foot in the mouth.Reacting to Mr Jaitely’s charges that Capt Amarinder was to be blamed for the property tax, he remarked, “nothing can be far from truth and as usual Mr Jaitely has resorted to an outright lie and ended up putting his foot in the mouth”.Giving details, he said, the World Bank had put certain conditions before giving loan to the state for development purposes. He said, there were some discussions at the bureaucratic level between the state and the central government in 2006.
He made it categorically clear that the state cabinet during his tenure as the Chief Minister did not give its approval to impose property tax in Punjab. He said, later the Akali-BJP government started the negotiations and finally the state government approved the property tax in 2013. “Better check who was in power in 2013”, he taunted Jaitely.“It defies any logic and common sense that someone like Mr Jaitely should blame me for a decision taken after six years of my demitting the Chief Minister’s office”, he remarked, while advising his opponent not to spread lies, as he can’t befool all the people all the time.