Election Commission appoints 15 expenditure observers in Punjab
CHANDIGARH, August 1: Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president Capt Amarinder Singh today blasted the “innocent mistake” theory being propounded by the Akali Dal to bail out Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal for having signed and cleared the file for the construction of the SYL Canal in 1978 after having taken over as the Chief Minister of Punjab for the second time on June 20, 1977.
“Presuming that it was an innocent mistake, which actually it was not as it was done with deliberate design, will you apologise to people of Punjab for the cardinal sin you committed by robbing them of their precious water and giving it away to Haryana just to please your personal friend”, Capt Amarinder asked Mr Badal, adding, “I think you must apologise as otherwise the burden of betrayal will be too huge and heavy for your feeble and aged shoulders to carry on any further”.
Referring to the Akali Dal General Secretary and Spokesman Prem Singh Chandumajra’s admission in Patiala on Sunday, wherein he claimed that clearing the SYL file was an “innocent mistake” committed by Mr Badal, he said, “it is a clear case of admission on part of Mr Badal made through his general secretary and party spokesman and that too in his characteristic manner by claiming he was cheated into doing it”.
He wondered as how a Chief Minister could play into the hands of “the clever babus in the secretariat” and clear such an important file in routine manner, without having studied it, as claimed by Chandumajra.
But, the PCC president added, the actual story is different as “Mr Badal had signed and cleared the SYL file consciously and knowingly as he wanted to please and oblige his personal friend and the then Haryana Chief Minister Chaudhry Devi Lal with whom he enjoyed personal friendship and which was duly acknowledged by the latter in the Haryana Vidhan Sabha on March 1, 1978”.
“Knowing Mr Badal so well, I can guarantee with certainty that there is a method in his madness and whatever he does, he does with deliberate design and after meticulously weighing his personal benefits and in this case also he preferred personal friendship over the interests of the Punjabis who had reposed their trust in him and elected him the Chief Minister for the second time, which he badly betrayed”, Capt Amarinder said, while asserting that clearing the file for the construction of the SYL canal can never be an “innocent mistake” by Mr Badal.
The former Chief Minister pointed out, earlier Mr Badal tried to wriggle out by claiming that he (Capt Amarinder) was lying and misleading people. “Now confronted with irrefutable historical evidence and records duly signed by Mr Badal himself, he tried to find a way out by making his spokesman and Anandpur Sahab MP Chandumajra to speak for himself and say it was an ‘innocent mistake’ he was made to commit by ‘the clever babus’”, he said.
The PCC president hoped that the entire Badal family, that suffers from the congenital syndrome of blaming the Congress party for everything including SYL, will show the grace and apologise not only to the Congress but to every Punjabi for the sin Mr Badal committed by pledging their precious water to a neighbouring state to please his personal friend.
