2015 IS PALLANPUR DEVELOPMENT YEAR, NOT OF PUNJAB DEVELOPMENT: MANPREET

Chandigarh, June 1: People’s Party of Punjab chief Manpreet Singh Badal today ridiculed Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal for claiming that 2015 was Punjab development year saying in fact, it was year for the development of Pallanpur resort of Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and his other business ventures.
“You are among the senior most political leaders in the country and also the fifth time Chief Minister of Punjab and as such, it does not behove a respected leader of your stature to mislead the people on the issues that directly concern them. You should have the guts to admit that the focus of this development is Pallanpur where your family is constructing a 7-star resort and is now in the news for this development for all the wrong reasons”, he said.
He called upon the Chief Minister to also explain to the people as to what had he been doing since 2007 when he took over as the Chief Minister in case 2015, the 8th year of his rule was to be the development year. This amounted to committing fraud on the people. The only development had been the comfort that the people have been provided by your family’s fleet of luxury buses at the cost of the state transport. In case the exponential expansion of the family business had been the progress during the last eight years, then it was really remarkable pro-people development.
He said none would buy such claims when the state was bankrupt with staggering debt with the centre refusing to the rescue of the state government and that too despite the fact that a member of the Badal family was part of the Narendra Modi cabinet. He also took Badal to task for repeatedly claiming that Punjab had gained from the report of the 14 Finance Commission while the facts were to the contrary and before the people. He reminded the Chief Minister that both the Union finance minister and the minister of state for finance had ruled out any special package for the state and the central assistance had gone down as compared to earlier allocations.
He reminded the Chief Minister that it was the duty of the state government to carry out development and the rulers are not supposed to work only for promoting only own family interests.