Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal today said the Supreme Court verdict directing Delhi’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government to pay Rs 450 crore it is spending on advertisements towards completion of the Delhi-Meerut RRTS project called for similar intervention in Punjab to force chief minister Bhagwant Mann to provide incentives to farmers to manage their paddy stubble and implement social welfare benefits instead of frittering away precious State resources on a Rs 1,000 crore propaganda based advertising spend.
Asserting that it was high time that the AAP government was held accountable, Sukhbir Badal called for an audit of all infrastructure projects that were at a standstill in Punjab because the State government was not releasing funds for the same. “This along with the squeeze on the release of funds for urban local bodies and rural development is causing untold suffering to the common man and needs to be remedied immediately through judicial intervention”, the SAD president asserted.
The SAD president said the Supreme Court order was also an eye-opener as it blew the lid off the manner in which AAP governments were using public money for self-publicity even as they denied money to infrastructure projects. He said just like in Delhi, the AAP government in Punjab was not releasing any money for infrastructure projects but continued to splurge on propaganda-based advertisements. “The situation has become such that money is not even being released for social welfare benefits like old age pension and Shagun (Ashirwad) scheme”.
Appealing for urgent judicial intervention by the apex court to force the AAP government in Punjab to undergo a course correction, Badal said “The AAP government failed to incentivize farmers to encourage them to manage stubble despite promises prior to the 2022 election that the government would collect stubble from farmer fields and pay them for the same”. He said it was shocking that the hard-earned money of Punjabis was being burnt on spreading AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal’s agenda across the length and breadth of the country even as farmers were denied compensation for crop damage and election promises like giving Rs 1,000 per month to all women remained a pipe dream.
Badal also asserted that the AAP government was solely responsible for the alarming Supreme Court observation calling for stopping the Minimum Support Price (MSP) to punish farmers for burning paddy stubble. He said the AAP government had failed to represent the interests of farmers appropriately in the apex court and its Advocate General had gone to the extent of submitting in favour of ending MSP. “It is clear that AAP Arvind Kejriwal is in league with the corporate lobby which is working to end the MSP system and that is why the Punjab government is not defending it stoutly in the apex court. The SAD will not let this conspiracy succeed at any cost. Our consistent struggle led to the introduction of MSP in 1966 and we will not let anti-farmer forces succeed in their nefarious attempt to scrap it”, Badal asserted.
