Chandigarh, March 16, 2020 (Yes Punjab News)
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab has termed the tall claims of ‘achievements’ by the Captain Amarinder Singh Government on the completion of its three-year term in power as a pack of lies, besides being a mere ploy to divert peoples’ attention from its colossal failures on the issues and concerns.
In a statement issued from party headquarters here on Monday, senior leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Leader of Opposition (LoP) Harpal Singh Cheema said that Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh and Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal have painted a ‘rosy’ picture in the report card of their 3-year ‘achievements’, blaming them of lying yet again to hide their massive failures during the tenure.
He said that government’s claim that it had fulfilled all promises it made in the party election manifesto, except for 103 which would be fulfilled in the next two years, which he Cheema said was a design to win peoples’ blah-blah and earn some brownie political points.
The LoP said that it was unfortunate on the part of the Chief Minister and Finance Minister for maintaining a stoic silence over the financial health of the government, adding that that it (the government) had been borrowing between Rs 20 thousand and 30 thousand crore from the union government year after year to run the already cash-strapped state government, taking it to the lowest ebb in terms of financial status compared to other states of the country. He accused the successive Badal and Captain governments lording over the state since 1992 for the financial botch-up.
Speaking on the government’s claims on taming the mafia in the state, the AAP leader reiterated that the Captain government had pedaled a promise among the people to crush the mighty mafia, including drug mafia, power mafia, sand mafia, transport mafia, land mafia, education mafia, cable mafia, et al, alleging that it was his (Captain’s) government which was extending a protective patronage to it, a la his predecessors – the Badals – the progenitors of ‘mafia raj’, he said. He lamented that the ‘mafia raj’ was calling the shots in the state under the watch of its political god fathers, asserting that Captain had admitted the fact that the AAP had been crying hoarse over for a pretty long time.
The AAP leaders likened that claim of Captain Government to announce a significant decision on its long-pending promise on bringing those behind the incidents of desecration and firing incidents at Bargari and Behbal Kalan, a promise that Captain Amarinder Singh had made to the people holding the divine ‘gutka’ sahib, saying the CM had been lying on the issue as those behind the acts were roaming free without the faer of the law.
Harpal Singh Cheema said the government, by its own confession, had admitted having failed to deliver on the promise of ‘ghar ghar rozgar’ (job in every household), adding that the promise the government had pedaled among the unemployed youth remained unfulfilled by far even as three years had rolled by, he said. The AAP leader said that the promise to give one lakh jobs to jobless youth in the next one year was a white lie. Cheema said that the report card was nothing but ‘old wine in new bottle’ simply to hoodwink the people of the state.
Taking a pot shot at the much-hyped report card presented by the Captain Government to bail out the farmers and farm labourers in the state, the LoP said that the community had suffered hugely during the successive governments, saying that the claim of having waived off Rs 5.62 lakh crore farmers’ loan and that it was in the process of allowing waiver to landless labourers was nothing but a white lie as a majority of them was crying for loan waiver promised by the government before assuming power.
The AAP leader said while the tall claims were laid on taking a due care of the ‘Dalit’ community and other under privileged, saying that the community had been crying hoarse for the pre/post matric scholarships pending for a pretty long time now, while the government was quite insensitive to their issues and concerns. He accused the government of being insensitive to the issues of the pensioners, widows, daily wage earners, as its 3-year report card made no mention of their legitimate rights.
Ridiculing the decision of the government to tame drug lords in the state with iron hand, Cheema said that the government’s non-seriousness towards the sensitive issue was conspicuous by doing a damn by simply deputing one police officer in every village to keep a watch on the nefarious activity in the respective areas, accusing that the government had miserably failed to address the problem despite the fact the it had promised to eliminate the menace of drugs three weeks after assuming power.
