Failure to project govt policies led to poll defeat in Pb: BJP

The Punjab unit of the BJP today said the "failure to properly project the pro-people policies" of the Akali-BJP government led to the defeat of the coalition in February's state Assembly polls.
Punjab BJP chief Vijay Sampla said this to reporters here after a day-long meeting of the party's state working committee, called to analyse the reasons behind the Akali-BJP combine's poll defeat.
The meeting was attended by BJP general secretary Ram Lal and MP and the party's Punjab affairs in-charge Prabhat Jha.
Sampla claimed that the opposition had created a "hype" regarding the drug menace, sand and transport mafia in the state and the ruling coalition failed to counter this "false propaganda".

Asserting that the Akali-BJP alliance would "continue", he said the two parties would contest the upcoming municipal corporation polls in the state "together".
Accusing the ruling Congress in Punjab of "failing to honour" its promise of farm loan waiver, Sampla held it responsible for the continuing farmer suicides in Punjab.

He also expressed apprehension that the rate of suicides might go up as the farmers had failed to secure fresh bank loans.
"Most of the farmers had not returned their previous loan amounts as they had believed in the Congress' promise of loan waiver. As they became defaulters, they could not even get fresh bank loans," said Sampla.

He dismissed the allegation of senior Aam Aadmi Party leader HS Phoolka that the BJP was offering Rs 15 crore to each of their MLAs in Punjab to switch their allegiance to the saffron party as "a blatant lie".