Cong MLAs: Bureaucracy will get us defeated in LS elections

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 17

Bureaucracy will get the Congress defeated in the coming parliamentary elections. This point was driven home by the Congress MLAs from the Doaba region, during the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh’s pre-budget consultation meetings with party MLAs held here today.

Lashing out at the state bureaucracy, the MLAs, led by Rana Gurjit Singh, said no development work had been carried out by the state government in the Doaba region. Rather, the MLAs, including Sangat Singh Gilzian and Hardev Singh Laddi, said there was discrimination against Doaba in favour of Malwa and Majha regions, which could cost the party dear in the elections. There are three parliamentary seats in Doaba — Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur and Kapurthala.

Laddi is learnt to have raised the issue of dilapidated condition of roads and how a senior officer in the CMO released Rs 15 crore for the repair of Phagwara-Nakodar road after he developed backache while driving on the road. “Imagine the plight of common man who has to travel on such roads daily. But the bureaucrats are just not bothered, though we keep approaching them for releasing funds for development,” he is learnt to have said in the meeting.

After the two MLAs launched the tirade against the babus, the Chief Principal Secretary to CM, Suresh Kumar, is learnt to have intervened, but it led to a verbal spat between him and Rana Gurjit Singh.

The MLAs are learnt to have pointed out how the potato farmers of Doaba were left to fend for themselves as prices fell after the first harvest. Rana Gurjit Singh is learnt to have pointed out that while 19 per cent of land in Punjab is in the Doaba region, it gets just 7.5 per cent of share of water for irrigation. The MLAs said all big projects that were announced went to the Malwa region (from where all recent Chief Ministers have hailed) or to the Majha region. They lamented that even the money for Central government projects was not percolating down to the Doaba region.

Kandi Area Development Board to be revived 

• During the meeting, Capt Amarinder Singh is learnt to have announced the revival of the Kandi Area Development Board and asked the Finance Department to release Rs 100 crore immediately as a one-time grant for holistic development of the area.
• Another Rs 10 crore would be released for digging deep tubewells in the area, the CM assured the MLAs.