Congress responsible for Punjab's fiscal problems: Badal

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today held successive Congress governments at the Centre responsible for the state's fiscal problems and said step-motherly treatment by the party coupled with its "regressive" policies broke the backbone of the economy.
He accused Congress of adopting an anti-Punjab stance, due to which development of the state had suffered a lot.
"Punjab's economy has been adversely affected due to the partition of the country and prolonged militancy but it got the fatal blow when Congress granted incentives to the neighbouring states, which led to mass exodus of industries of the state to these hilly states," Badal said while addressing a political gathering here.

He claimed that Punjab's economy got derailed due to wrong policies of Congress, "but we are trying our level best to put it back on track".
Terming the formation of Modi government at the Centre as a "silver lining" for the state, Badal said, the days of discrimination with Punjab were over and now an era of "unprecedented" development would be heralded in the state.
He expressed hope that though the Narendra Modi-led NDA government has taken over the reins of the nation recently, but it would certainly soon allot some key major projects, which would give impetus to the overall development of the state.

About the purported letter written by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Badal said media misinterpreted it and added the Union Minister had just referred to the issue of debt waiver of state and revision of formula for Army recruitment to the concerned quarters.