Amarinder claims Akalis trying to take credit for Cong govt's initiatives

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh today flayed the Akalis claiming they tried to take credit for various welfare and development initiatives of the Congress government by portraying them as their own.

In a statement issued here, the chief minister came down heavily on SAD leader Sukhbir Singh Badal for his "false and malicious" claims on various announcements made by the government as part of the Governor's address at the start of the current Budget Session in the Vidhan Sabha.

While governance was an ongoing exercise in continuity and his government had no qualms in acknowledging or continuing with any worthwhile projects of the previous regime, the Akalis' effort to take credit for all the good work of his government was yet another lie being perpetrated by them on the people of Punjab, said the chief minister.

The Akalis would not be sitting in the Opposition had they really worked for the welfare and benefit of the people during their 10-year-rule, he quipped.

The fact is that what had been done by them in the name of public welfare was actually just aimed at the welfare of one family, Amarinder Singh alleged.

Countering Sukhbir Badal's claim on the interstate River Water Issues, the chief minister said the return of the land acquired for SYL to the farmers was only the logical conclusion of the bold Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004, passed by his government during his earlier stint.

On the Shahpur Kandi Project, Amarinder Singh said while the Akalis had launched the project in 2013, the fact was that the work was soon stopped by the J&K government.

It was only through his government's continuous efforts with the J&K government and the Central Government that approval had finally been granted in August 2017 for resumption of the work, he added.

Acknowledging that free power for agriculture sector and SCs/BCs and BPL families was a continuation from the previous government's policy in this regard, the chief minister said his government had not only managed to carry the scheme forward, despite the legacy of fiscal debt inherited from the SAD-BJP, but had actually gone way beyond.