CM trying to hush up foodgrain scam: Capt

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 24

Punjab Congress chief Capt Amarinder Singh today said Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was trying to hush up the matter of “misappropriation” of Rs 12,000 crore meant for foodgrain procurement.

In a statement issued here today, Amarinder alleged that during his (Badal’s) previous tenure between 1997 and 2002, he had a misappropriated Rs 4,700 crore in a similar manner.

The former CM said when he took over in 2002, his government inherited a CCL deficit of Rs 4,700 crore from the Akali government.

He said he had to give personal guarantee to then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee that he would ensure that the deficit was cleared before further CCL was released. “And when we demitted the office in 2007, there was no deficit,” he claimed.

Amarinder also said Badal had no moral authority to blame the Congress for the SYL row as it was he (Badal) who had accepted Rs 2 crore from his Haryana counterpart Devi Lal in 1978 for the construction of the canal by giving precedence to personal relations over Punjab’s interests.