Badal dares Kejriwal to come clean on Punjab's issue

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today dared the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal to make his stand clear on the Punjab's territorial issues before the Punjabis.
Addressing the people on the last leg of three-day long Sangat Darshan programme here, the Badal said that Kejriwal should desist from befooling innocent people as his stoic silence on Punjab issues was creating apprehensions in their minds about his so called "loyalty, sincerity and commitment" for the development of state and welfare of its people.
Badal said that Kejriwal being Haryanvi was tight-lipped and not coming up openly to show his cards on safeguarding the rights of Punjab on several contentious issues like river waters, Chandigarh as capital and transfer of Punjabi speaking areas to the state.

These issues were hanging in fire since long due to the apathetic attitude of the successive Congress led governments at Centre, he said.
He said Kejriwal's "dubious character" has been unmasked due to recent instance of his Delhi Government submitting an affidavit in Apex Court against the interests of Punjab on Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) issue.
Badal appealed the people to be judgemental enough to identify the political leadership which was sincerely working for the welfare of the state or others indulging in cheap politics like AAP and Congress with a sole motive to rule in state to satiate their lust for power.

Holding Congress party squarely responsible for the decay of local industry in the state, he said that liberal financial incentives and concessions given to hill states had severely hit the industry which resulted in mass exodus of several industrial units from Punjab to the neighbouring states like Himachal Pardesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand.

Badal said he is fully seized of the matter regarding the various gangsters operating in Punjab and is being regularly updated by DGP Suresh Arora.
Badal alleged that the Congress leadership was totally
"insincere" on the SYL issue concerning every Punjabi.
"Had we buckled under pressure from state Congress leadership to submit resignation then they would have been succeeded in their ulterior motive to pave a way for the construction of this canal. Since we acted smartly by convening a special session of Vidhan Sabha, which was boycotted by Congress, and subsequently got the entire land acquired for SYL denotified in the Cabinet," he said.

Badal alleged the Congress had always betrayed Punjab and its people on every issue, be it political, economic or religious.
He claimed that even the issue of SYL was an outcome of Congress Party's "apathetic" attitude towards Punjab.
The Chief Minister further said that water was basic ingredient of life "and any such move to share the river waters of the state would be disastrous as it would ruin Punjab."
"While signing the agreement of the SYL canal the then Congress government at the Centre blatantly ignored the universally accepted Riparian Principle on river water sharing. Every Punjabi is duty bound to oppose this move and all of us should pledge to protect the waters of the state at any cost," Badal said.

Terming the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party as "anti-poor", the Chief Minister cautioned the people that if voted to power both of these parties would "discontinue the several pro-people schemes and subsidies being currently given to people".
"It is on record that the SAD-BJP alliance government is the only political party in the state, which is not only pro-poor but also a true custodian of the rights of Punjab and Punjabis," he said and listed the major pro-people initiatives taken by the state government.
He claimed that the SAD-BJP alliance government has supplied free power to the farmers of the state at a cost of Rs 5000 crore annually to bail them out from agrarian crisis.

Earlier in his address, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal said that he is ready for any sacrifice but not a single drop of water would be allowed to go outside the state and the SAD-BJP government as the custodians of the rights of people is fully committed to ensure this.
Terming river waters as the lifeline of Punjab, he said that lakhs of forms would be signed by the farmers which would be sent to the President of the country in the form of a petition that without river waters the soil of Punjab would turn into a desert thus sounding a death knell for the farming sector in the state.