Bajwa ridicules Badal for invoking Modi name on state issues

The Punjab Pradesh
Congress Committee President, Mr. Partap Singh Bajwa, today ridiculed
the Chief Minister, Mr. Parkash Singh Badal, for seeking votes in the
name of his Gujarat counterpart and the BJP's prime ministerial
candidate, Mr. Narendra Modi, on issues of development which are in
the state domain.

"Issues like industrialization and creating employment avenues for
the youth are the issues which concern the state government. None
stops the state government from focusing on such issues. Similarly,
transforming spiritual centres into world class tourist destinations
is again within the domain of the state government. Who stops Mr.
Badal from focusing on this issues? Despite being in power for the
second consecutive term in Punjab, the progress card of Mr. Badal
shows a big zero on these issues", he said.

Talking to the media persons, Mr. Bajwa said day in and day out, Mr.
Badal and his Deputy Chief Minister son, Mr. Sukhbir Singh Badal, keep
on parroting that their agenda was to take the state on a higher
tangent of development but ironically, had never talked about any
Punjab model while the prime ministerial candidate had been drumming
up the model of his state which otherwise had serious flaws on the
human resources development front. Mr. Badal's vision had remained
confined only to Adarsh schools, a project which had doomed and his
son had been talking of strengthening the infrastructure while at the
grass roots, the condition of the roads had become further pitiable in
this second term of the Badal government.

He was here to attend the filing of nomination papers by Chaudhary
Santokh Singh.

He said fully aware that they stood fully exposed in front of the
people in the state who were also fed up with their goonda and mafia
raj, they were trying to bank upon Mr. Modi who was a non-issue in
Punjab. Not only that, Mr. Modi would prove to be their further
undoing as he had become symbol of the eviction of the Punjabi
farmers settled in Kutch area of Gujarat and. He said in case Mr. Modi
had been sincere in keeping these farmers in his state who have been
tilling the lands there for years, his government would have withdrawn
the special leave petition filed in the Supreme Court against the
order of the Gujarat High Court which had provided relief to the
farmers. Damocles' sword continued to hang over the heads of these
farmers who had turned the Gujarat's waste lands into green lands.

He said so far as increasing trade across the border was concerned,
Mr. Modi was associated with hawkish approach as against the positive
steps taken by the earlier governments at the centre and as such,
Punjab could not expect to benefit from increased trade across the
border. The economy of Punjab would take a quantum jump once the
access was available to the central Asian markets, he added.

He charged Mr. Badal with following policies of discrimination in the
matter of development works saying Majha and Doaba had been blatantly
discriminated against under the present government as all the
resources had been diverted to the Malwa region, especially Bathinda,
Mansa and Muktsar districts. He made it clear the people would not
tolerate it.

Mr. Bajwa would campaign all over the state in the coming days.

Others who were present on the occasion included the Mr. Jagbir Singh
Brar President DCC Jalandhar Rural, Chaudhary Jagjit Singh
Ex-Minister, Mr. Avtar Henry Ex-Minister, Punjab Youth Congress
President Mr. Vikram Singh Chaudhary, Mr. Amarjit Singh Samra Ex-MLA,
Mr. Rajinder Beri President DCC Jalandhar Urban, Mr. Rajanbir Singh
General Secretary PPCC, S. Hardev Singh Laddy, S. Daljit Singh
Ahluwalia and Mrs. Kamaljit Kaur Multani President DYC Jalandhar.

Originally Source : Kulbir Singh Kalsi-Chandigarh