Sidhu accuses Akalis of 'looting' Punjab

Punjab cabinet minister Navjot Singh Sidhu hit out at the previous Shiromani Akali Dal-led regime today, accusing it of "looting" the state in the past 10 years.
He also took a dig at former SAD minister Sucha Singh Langah and said there was a "character crisis" in the state.
"They looted Punjab...their mastery was in corruption and now they are questioning us what have we done in six months. Did they ever rise above their interests to think about Punjab?" Sidhu told reporters here, criticising the Akalis for playing "dirty politics".
"There is a character crisis in Punjab where moral values have gone down to the lowest ebb. Even the election today has tilted because of those moral values," he said in a dig aimed at Langah, talking about the Gurdaspur bypoll on October 11.

Langah was booked by police on September 28 after a woman filed a complaint against him for allegedly raping her repeatedly since 2009.
The minister for local bodies, tourism and cultural affairs blamed the Akalis for the clogging of at least 95 per cent sewers in Punjab towns, alleging that a financial audit of the municipal work has not been conducted in a decade.

Sidhu favoured a tough law for security of journalists.
Rubbishing reports of differences between him and Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, he said: "We (all Congress MLAs in Punjab) are soldiers of Capt Amarinder Singh."
The 53-year-old former cricketer underlined the importance of having policies and programmes which can prevent peasants from falling into the debt trap.

He blamed the lopsided polices of the previous dispensation for the losses suffered by the Punjab Roadways.
Sidhu accused the Badal dispensation of "doing nothing" to build tourism infrastructure in the state and said the Congress government will develop "brand Punjab" to boost employment.
He clarified he was not against projects like Virasat-e- Khalsa museaum of Sikhism in Anandpur Sahib, but underlined the need to make these projects self-sustaining.
Earlier this year, Sidhu had said the museum set up by the Akali regime turned out to be a "white elephant", with the government spending Rs 12 crore annually to maintain it.

He said the state government was mulling to introduce a subject in school curriculum on Punjab's history and culture.