Chandigarh, June 4, 2020 (Yes Punjab News)
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) – Bharatiya Janata Party today jointly decided to fight the excesses being committed on Punjabis by Congressmen who were openly looting the State coffers even as it demanded an independent inquiry into the Rs 5,600 crore revenue loss incurred by the State in the liquor scam besides immediate relief to the common man and the industrial sector.
In a meeting of the SAD-BJP coordination committte which was jointly presided over by SAD President Sukhbir Singh Badal and State BJP President Ashwani Sharma, it was decided to meet Governor VP Singh Badnore to present a memorandum to demand independent inquiries into the liquor, seed and ration scams besides immediate release of sugarcane dues to farmers.
The meeting jointly held that the government had tried to cover up the Rs 5,600 crore liquor scam by affecting a compromise between the chief secretary and the group of ministers who had been exposed by the former.
“The issue of loot of the State treasury remains. It is of utmost importance to order an independent inquiry into the scam to ascertain how the spoils were shared between the different Congress leaders. The role of various distilleries including that of the family of the Religious Advisor to the chief minister which had already been exposed by the seizure of two truckloads of illicit liquor.
There is also the issue of ENA supplied to front men of Congress leaders Madan Lal Jalalpur and Hardyal Kamboj who operated the illegal bottling plants”.
The meeting also took note of the inter-State ramification of the Rs 4,000 crore Seed scam under which farmers had been duped by being supplied spurious seed of PR-128 and PR-129 paddy varieties.
It said though few arrests had been made belatedly after an uproar by farmers including that of the owner of Karnal Agri Seeds, the political patronage given to the scamsters could be unmasked only by a central probe.
Mr Sukhbir Badal and Mr Ashwani Sharma also noted that the government was not only discriminating against farmers, but also mistreating them. They demanded that Rs 680 crore pending dues of sugarcane growers be released to farmers immediately.
They said both government and private sugar mills owned Rs 300 crore and 380 crore respectively to farmers and the government should ensure that this money is released to farmers at the earliest.
The leaders said while farmers were given step motherly treatment, the Congress government had given a relief of Rs 673 crore to liquor contractors and Rs 150 crore to sand miners. “ Nothing has also been done for khet mazdoor, daily wagers and semi skilled people like barbers, carpenters and masons who all lost their livelihoods during the last three months”.
Both leaders jointly demanded that the power and water bills of general category consumers be halved for the last three months and those of Scheduled Caste and Backward Caste consumers be waived off completely.
The leaders also asked the Congress government to tell why it had not done any disbursal from the Rs 6,000 crore accumulated with it under the Disaster Management Fund. They said the government should come out with an audit report of the money spent under this head in the last three years and explain why this money had been misappropriated.
It also took severe notice that even as the disaster management funds remained unutilized, a huge amount of ration sent by the centre for 1.4 crore people had also been misappropriated by Congressman. It said this amounted to cruelty against the people, while noting that even the migrant labourers had not been given ration by the State government.
The SAD-BJP coordination committee meeting also demanded the government withdraw the 70 to 80 per cent increase in MBBS fee, saying parents of medical students could not be burdened amidst a pandemic. It said even as the government was taking all these anti-people measures it had failed in its duty to provide professional medical attention to COVID-19 patients and even failed to protect its health staff.
Those who attended the meeting included Balwinder Singh Bhundar, Jathedar Tota Singh, , Prof. Prem Singh Chandumajra, Maheshinder Singh Grewal, Dr. Daljit Singh Cheema ,Sikandar Singh Maluka and Bikram Singh Majithia,
From BJP Leaders Dinesh Sharma, Avinash Rai Khanna, Tarun Chugh, Madan Mohan Mittal, Jiwan Gupta, Subash Sharma and Malwinder Kang.
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