Ahead of LS bypoll, Sukhbir visits city, targets Mann govt

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, January 7

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Tuesday condemned the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government for lying that “it did not owe PSPCL any money when the truth was that the state power utility was owed Rs. 7,475 crore as per the government records”.

FM lied on PSPCL

The PSPCL’s website discloses that the utility owed Rs 4,870 crore in unpaid subsidy and Rs 2,605 crore on account of unpaid bills of government departments. Finance Minister Harpal Cheema has lied by claiming that the Punjab Government does not owe any money to PSPCL. — Sukhbir Badal, SAD Chief

The SAD chief was on a daylong tour of Jalandhar, Kartarpur and Adampur Assembly constituencies, ahead of the Jalandhar parliamentary bypoll. He visited more than a dozen families along with party leaders Pawan Kumar Tinu, Gurpartap Wadala, Kulwant Manan and Jagbir Brar.

Alleging that PSPCL could be owing much more as the AAP government was a master at fudging financial figures, the SAD president said “the PSPCL website discloses that the utility owed Rs 4,870 crore in unpaid subsidy and Rs 2,605 crore on account of unpaid bills of government departments. This clearly proves that Finance Minister Harpal Cheema has lied by claiming that the Punjab Government does not owe any due to PSPCL”.

Stressing that the AAP government had created a man-made financial and power crisis in Punjab, Sukhbir said the state had borrowed Rs 45,000 crore this year, but had defaulted on paying dues to PSPCL. “It has also not done any capital investment by not taking up even one development project. It has wasted hundreds of crores on gimmicks like Aam Aadmi Clinics and advertisements”.

He said dereliction of duty by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann would cost Punjabis dearly. “We are sitting on a time bomb. PSPCL has been bankrupted and does not have funds for routine repair works. Demand is overshooting supply even in winter. This trend could have devastating results as the entire paddy crop could be in danger in summer. So will be the industrial sector”.

He added: “Bhagwant Mann is a puppet in the hands of AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal and had left governance of the state to MP Raghav Chadda. This is also the reason behind the deteriorating law and order situation and drug menace in the state.”

During his tour to Adampur, he inspected the Jalandhar-Hoshiarpur flyover where the construction work has been suspended since 2017 and interacted with the local people. He disclosed that the construction work was started in 2016 during the SAD government but it came to a halt the very next year when the Congress took over the reins of the state. He promised people that the party would raise the issue and force the government to complete the project.

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