Chandigarh, May 14, 2020 (Yes Punjab News)
Shiromani Akali Dal said here today that the Congress leaders in Punjab were conspiring to make the state Chief Secretary Karan Avtar Singh a “scapegoat” to hide the massive skeletons of corruption tumbling out of their closets.
“Apart from targeting the unblemished whistle-blowing head of the state civil service , the Ministers and Congress leaders have now started washing even one another’s dirty and corrupt linen in public. The allegations and threats of corruption cases being made by ministers are just some of the examples how the ministers are now fighting over their loot”, said the senior Akali leader, Dr Daljit Singh Cheema in a statement here this afternoon.
“ The CS has nothing to do with the massive excise losses to the state exchequer as he took charge of the excise department only in January this year, whereas the state has been suffering losses from excise running into thousands of crores for the past three years. What accounts for those losses between 2017 and January 2020 when Karan A Singh was not handling excise department?
In fact, this would have been the first excise policy during his tenure as head of the department. So how can he be blamed for revenue losses for the years when he was not even in the department?” asked Dr Cheema in his hard hitting statement.
He said that even the ministers committee formed by the CM will make recommendations on how to compensate the liquor Contractors for their “losses” and not to find ways to earn more revenue for the state.
The Akali leader further said that it was strange that the minsters had first attacked the Chief Secretary on the issue of the state excise policy for the ensuing year. But in a matter of 24 hours, the ministers not only approved the policy but even fully empowered the Chief Ministers to make whatever changes he deemed necessary in it.
“ It is clear that the real issue was not the excise policy but the Chief Secretary’s reported observations that the Congress leaders, especially from Bathinda, were not allowing the policy to be implemented honestly as they had massive and questionable personal stakes in liquor loot,” said the former Education Minister.
He said that the SAD wanted the people to see how instead of giving relief to the them, their ministers were fighting desperately for “relief” to the liquor contractors . They pleaded for shops of essential commodities to remain closed but liquor vends to be opened.
Then , for the first time in history, Punjab saw home delivery of milk stopped but the home delivery of liquor started. That was meant to give a legal cover to their “liquor loot” through illegitimate sale during the lockdown, ” said the Akali leader, adding that it was because of this loot that the state revenue from excise had been constantly falling in the Congress regime.
The Former minister said the state revenue from excise always registered a record increase during SAD-BJP governments but a record fall whenever the Congress formed a government. This year alone, the revenue loss to the state would be to the tune of more than Rs 2000 crore.”
“This is people’s money meant for people’s welfare but now , it is going direct into Congress leaders’ pockets,” he concluded, reiterating his party’s demand for an “independent probe into the liquor scam.”
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