TALWANDI SABO(BATHINDA): Former union minister and Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal today said the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had joined hands with the Congress party as far back as 2013 and that now it was only formalizing the alliance at both the national and Punjab level.
Talking to newsmen after holding a meeting at Chak Heerasinghwala during the course of which she also distributed grants, the Bathinda MP said AAP Convener Arvind Kejriwal had taken the support of the Congress party to form a government in Delhi in 2013 after taking a vow on his son’s head that he would never enter into an alliance with the Congress. “Subsequently as we have seen Congress and AAP teaming up against the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and forming their respective governments in 2017 and 2022. “Even now they are united in criticizing the SAD even as they are holding parleys on joint ticket distribution in Punjab ''.
Mrs Harsimrat Badal said all this proved that both AAP and the Congress were trying to fool Punjabis by indulging in shadow boxing even as they had decided to contest the forthcoming Lok Sabha election jointly. She said the manner in which the Congress, which was the opposition party in the State, had compromised with AAP proved that it had no interest in the welfare of the people and could go to any extent for petty political gains.
Asserting that the AAP-Congress alliance was detrimental to the interest of Punjabis, Mrs Badal said “now both have joined hands to loot the State”. She also highlighted how the Congress had during its 2017-2022 tenure taken a loan of Rs I lakh crore and how AAP had borrowed Rs 60, 000 crore in the last twenty months alone. “Both the Congress and ongoing AAP tenure have been wasted years for Punjabis with no infrastructure project coming up in the State even as development came to a standstill”.
She said the AAP regime was also anti-poor with the government stopping the Shagun scheme even as the social welfare benefits like aata-daal and old age pension had been severely curtailed.
Mrs Badal said in stark contrast Punjab witnessed speedy development in all spheres during the erstwhile SAD led government. “Besides making the State power surplus, we brought in road projects worth Rs 35, 000 crore, thermal plant and airports besides introducing novel social welfare initiatives”. She also cited how she had achieved success in bringing the prestigious AIIMS institute to Bathinda besides a Central University as well as other projects. Urging the people to repose faith in the SAD in the forthcoming elections, Mrs Badal said “this is set the tone for another era of landmark development coupled with a pro-farmer and pro-poor government which will take all sections of society with it”.
The mp distributed Rs 10 lakh for a waterworks project at Tarkhanwali village, Rs 8 lakh for a sewerage project and Rs 2 lakh for a pucca dharamshala.