Chandigarh, December 9, 2019 (Yes Punjab News)
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Punjab, expressing serious concern over the rising prices of onion and other essential commodities of daily use, has submitted memoranda to the government in the saddle through deputy commissioners (DCs).
In a statement issued from party headquarters on Monday, state president and parliamentarian, Bhagwant Mann said that due to the anti-people policies of the successive state and central government, the people were left to suffer.
He said that the income was dipping at an alarming rate, and so was the unemployment in the state, leading to sharp surge in the prices of onion and other commodities of daily use, saying that neither the Captain Amarinder government in the state nor the Modi government at the centre were sensitive about the malaise the people were subjected to face.
Mann said “The governments were busy on an appeasement spree to benefit a handful of corporate houses and other big time entrepreneurs”, accusing that the government of draining out the common man’s share of money available on account of certain welfare schemes through big ‘deals’ to leverage into appeasing the ‘patronized’ few corporate houses.
He said the government thermal plants were being shut down under long-time, one-sided agreements, to promote private operators, were the fitting examples of governments’ sealing such ‘dubious’ deals, leading to driving a hole in the consumers’ pockets by offering them costlier electricity.
Mann said that the government needed to show the large-heartedness to bail out the common people from the economic slowdown by integrating the agrarian economy, public, government and semi-government sectors as it had bailed out the corporate houses by offering a relief worth a whopping two and a half lakh crore.
The AAP leader said that the governments should take a cue from the Arvind Kejriwal government in Delhi, questioning that if the Delhi government could provide onion to consumers there at half the price and providing electricity at cheaper rate and could go about bettering the government schools and hospitals, why couldn’t the state and union governments emulate the model?
Mann further said that in the memorandums submitted to the government through the DCs, the AAP had demanded to initiate steps to reduce VAT on diesel-petrol, exempting government’s own share of, tweaking the anti-people agreements with the private players, setting up of processing units in the state to generate employment, ensuring remunerative prices of crops.
Mann said that state and district-level leadership of the AAP handed over the memorandums to the government through DCs, which included leader of opposition (LoP), Harpal Singh Cheema from Sangrur, state core committee chairman (Mohali) and Dy leader of opposition (Dy LoP) Sarabjit Kaur Manuke (Ludhiana).
