CCL for wheat procurement a routine affair: Amarinder

Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh today said getting Cash Credit Limit (CCL) for wheat procurement is a routine affair which "had to come to the state in any case" and asked Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal "what was so celebratory about it".
"The way you have gone into frenzied jubilations over a routine affair like release of the CCL is a sad reflection of the state of affairs you are presiding over," he said while reacting to Badal's criticism of the opposition leaders over the alleged wheat scam.
The Reserve Bank has issued authorisation of Cash Credit Limit of Rs 17,523 crore towards first installment for procurement of 90 lakh tonnes of wheat this rabi season by Punjab government.

Amarinder also told Badal that instead of feeling "anguished" over the "genuine and justified" criticism by opposition, he should feel anguished over suicide by farmers because of debt and distress.
Taking a jibe at Badal's reported "feeling of anguish" comment, he said "better shed your tears for those thousands of farmers who lost their lives in distress and despair, thanks to your callous negligence and indifference than wail and whine over our criticism for your failures."
The state Congress chief, in a statement here, also said that mere release of Rs 17,000 crore CCL does not wipe out the "Rs 12,000 crore wheat scandal that has taken place under his nose."

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To a question on the Bains brothers -- Simarjeet Singh and Balwinder Singh -- entering into alliance with AAP ahead of next year's state assembly polls, Amarinder denied that the Congress had been in talks to rope them into the party.
Taking a dig at the alliance struck by AAP with the Bains brothers' Lok Insaf Party, Amarinder said: "Kejriwal is clearly frustrated by the continuing decline of his party's prospects in Punjab."
"Having seen the writing on the wall, with his party in complete doldrums, Kejriwal is now resorting to all kinds of lowly measures to try and retain the lost ground," he claimed.

Amarinder said Kejrwal, who had been claiming to be winning 100 seats in upcoming Punjab polls, was now reduced to having alliances with non-descript political parties.
He also questioned Kejriwal over using an election rally platform in Bathinda "to recycle and release old documents alleging Swiss accounts of his family members, instead of facing the media on the issue".
The PPCC leader claimed it was evident that the AAP leader had no answers to the questions the media would definitely have raised following the release of old documents.
"That alone could explain his decision to release the documents at a public rally, where he could not be questioned," said Amarinder.

Amarinder said the alleged account numbers which the AAP leader says are held by his family members were the same old numbers which Kejriwal's colleague Ashish Khetan had released in March 2016, "and which he had already showed to be a sham."
Alleging an election-motivated nexus between the BJP-SAD combine and the AAP, the Punjab Congress president pointed out that the attempt to "malign" him by implicating his family members falsely in the matter had begun before the parliamentary elections.
"Bereft of any serious plank to fight the elections in Punjab, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched a groundless tirade against my family members at an election rally in Barmer. Jaitley had then picked it up for his election campaign in Amritsar," said the Punjab Congress chief.

"Jaitley had, expectedly, suffered a humiliating defeat (in 2014 LS polls from Amritsar), clearly showing that the people of Punjab could not be taken in by such senseless charges, which even the Enforcement Department, working at the behest of the finance minister, had failed to prove," Amarinder pointed out.
He also dared Kejriwal to come out with his categorical stand on the SYL canal issue "instead of playing games to woo the Punjab voters", who, he said, will not be taken in by his "theatrics".
He lambasted the AAP leader over his "continuing silence" on the matter which could impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of people across Punjab.