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Chandigarh, December 4: People’s Party of Punjab chief Manpreet Singh Badal today urged the Akali Dal leadership including Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Shiromani Akali Dal president and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal to prove sincerity to the issues concerning the state by getting the same resolved from the centre.
“The Akali Dal has been exploiting the sentiments of the people by raking up these issues that vary from autonomy based upon Anandpur Sahib Resolution to framing of appropriate farm policy with resolution of river waters dispute, transfer of Chandigarh and punishment to the guilty of November, 1984 anti-Sikh mayhem in between. The party is in power in the state and partner at the centre. This arrangement was there too ever earlier when the NDA had come to power in 1999 with Atal Behari Vajpayee as the Prime Minister. Now is the time to get the same resolved rather than going into the past”, he said.
Manpreet underscored that all that the Chief Minister had done so far in the fifth term was to write a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi listing these issues without any follow up action. The people in the state have a right to know as to why these issues are not hammered vociferously by the Akali Dal MPs in Parliament, besides the same being taken up by Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal who used to be vocal in the Lok Sabha earlier.
He specially referred to the issue of discrimination that has been raised by the Akali Dal over the years by the successive governments at the centre and questioned whether it had ended with the coming into power of the Modi government or not. The state government should at least get the issue of discrimination resolved that was meted out to the state while extending industrial concessions to the neighbouring states by the Vajpayee government when Sukhbir was the Union minister of state for industries.
He also referred to the speech by Akali MP Prem Singh Chandumajra during 2-day debate on the constitution who talked about the spirit of the constitution having been ignored while implementing the constitution. He said now was the time for the Akali Dal to get all those distortions rectified and the issues concerning Punjab resolved as in the neighbouring Haryana too, it was its alliance partner, the Bharatiya Janata Party, that was in power.
