Punjab News Express
CHANDIGARH: Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Ludhiana on Tuesday cold shouldered Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and turned a deaf ear to his pleas for central government support for the state’s industrial development. It is big embarrassment for the ruling SAD-BJP alliance when Punjab assembly elections are around the corner.
The main opposition party Congress has taken a dig on Badal saying that even Modi has no faith on policies of Badal Government. This, said the Punjab Congress, had also completely exposed the Badal government’s lies on the state of the industries in Punjab. In his appeal to Modi for central support, Badal had clearly admitted that the state’s industry and agriculture were in the doldrums, and the economy was in a bad shape, the Punjab Congress pointed out.
By shunning Badal’s pitch for special treatment to Punjab, Modi had sent out an unambiguous message to the Akali-led state government that it could not turn to the Centre now to cover up the trail of financial, agricultural and industrial devastation it had left behind in the past nine years of its rule in Punjab, said the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC).
Modi had also ignored Badal's pleas to given special industrial package to Punjab on the pattern of hilly states. The Center government had also stopped cash credit limit to Punjab in the last wheat procurment season due to difference of Rs.20, 000 in the CC limit and grain stocks in Punjab. Center had refused to adjust the amount and demanded to level the stocks. Badal government is now planning to take loan of Rs.31000 crores to meet the deficit.
Daljit Singh Cheema an Akali Dal spokesman has claimed that the Badal government had successfully restarted industries and wooed investments into Punjab. Countering Cheema’s blatant lies, the Congress leaders said as per official statistics, Punjab had slipped from no. 7 in 2007 to no. 14 in 2015 in terms of per capita income. Decline in agricultural growth rate from 4% in 2007 and –(minus) 0.75% in 2015, as well as reduction in industrial growth rate from 21.5% in 2007 to 2.1% in 2015, were the other contributions of the Badal government to the state, the PPCC leaders added.