‘Govt seeking `10,000-cr loan with eye on polls’
Sunday, 19/07/2015
http://paper.hindustantimes.com/epaper/viewer.aspx
SAS NAGAR: The loyalists of Congress’s deputy leader in Lok Sabha Capt Amarinder Singh are leaving no stone unturned to make the former Punjab CM’s rallies an impressive show of strength, both in terms of presence of MLAs, former MLAs, senior leaders and the crowds.
While the posters of Congress’s central leaders were on the stage, the Dussehra ground here had large posters of Amarinder hailing him as the saviour of Punjab waters and farmers.
Rally organiser, SAS Nagar MLA Balbir Sidhu, hailed Amarinder’s leadership, so did senior leader and Sanaur MLA Lal Singh who went on to announce Captain as the state’s future CM.
Amarinder’s wife, Patiala MLA Preneet Kaur, who spoke before Amarinder, sounded the poll bugle saying the battle for the 2017 polls has already begun.
Flanked by 27 legislators, Amarinder, while addressing the gathering lambasted the Akali-BJP state government proposal to seek `10,000 crore when the state was reeling under severe debt amounting to `1.25 lakh crore.
However, the issue of drugs dominated his speech again as he took a dig at deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal for saying that he would seek a ban on production of poppy husk in Madhya Pradesh, asking him as to who would ban the production of synthetic drugs in Punjab, where he was the deputy chief minister and home minister and “drugs were being produced under his patronage”.
The Congress leader also lashed out at chief minister Parkash Singh Badal for his “short-sightedness”. He wondered why Badal did not think about development all these years and why was he now trying to deceive people.
He also questioned Sukhbir’s claims before the elections that Punjab would produce surplus electricity which would be exported to Pakistan. “Leave aside Pakistan, you have not been able to provide it to anybody at home; neither to the domestic consumers, nor the industry, nor to the farmers,” he said, adding that even the power plants that had been set up in Punjab had no commitment of providing power to the state.
