Punjab gone down, family biz proliferated under Badal: Bajwa

Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president Partap Singh Bajwa today said the state has "gone down" while Badal "family business" had "proliferated" under five terms of Parkash Singh Badal as Chief Minister.
He asked Badal to count even his single achievement of during these terms and said the Chief Minister had been "vague" on questions about "misuse of official power" in making his family business flourish.
The state once known for green revolution is now infamous for drug trafficking going on "with political-police patronage," he said.
Bajwa in a statement expressed surprise at Badal's claim that the latter was the best guarantor of amity and peace in the state.

Bajwa claimed it was the Congress government headed by Beant Singh that restored peace in troubled Punjab and Badal should "think twice" before making such claims.
Badal's claims are contrary to facts. His and Akali Dal's role had been only to vitiate the state's atmosphere, he said.

"Badal should go through the document he signed demanding Khalistan while the resolution of his party was on the record for justifying use of bullet. You can't fool all the people all the time," he added.
He alleged that the two parties that had been raising passions during unrest in the state were the Akali Dal and the Jana Sangh, the earlier avatar of the BJP.

He further said that it was perhaps for these reasons that Badal was not interested in bringing his political career on record by way of writing a biography.
Badal had yesterday rejected the idea of writing a biography.
Bajwa said Badal and his party were so scared they boycotted the 1992 Assembly polls due to terrorist threat.
Referring to the Akali-BJP relationship the PCC chief said the rift between the two is wide open with BJP ministers expressing their angst with their ally at public platforms.
He said the Modi-government in which the Akali Dal was a partner had ditched Punjab on every issue and it was for BJP chief Amit Shah to clarify whether his party would continue to have alliance with them in 2017 elections.