Cheema invites Navjot to join AAP

Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, June 16

Harpal Singh Cheema, Leader of the Opposition in Punjab Assembly, has asked Energy Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu to join the Aam Aadmi Party if he had lost faith in the leadership of Captain Amarinder Singh and the policies of the ruling Congress.

Talking to media persons here on Saturday, the AAP leader said power was a crucial portfolio, particularly in the prevailing scenario in Punjab where power purchase agreements signed by the previous SAD-BJP ministry would put an additional financial burden of nearly Rs 70,000 crore in next 25 years.

“Entrusted with power ministry, Sidhu should take control and get an audit conducted of power purchase agreements,” he said, adding that if Sidhu initiated reforms in the power sector, the AAP would extend full support to him.

Cheema charged the Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh of the promise that he had made at the time of 2017 assembly polls that if voted to power, Congress would rescind all power purchase agreements from the private sector and the thermal power plants in the state would be made operational.

Criticising the government for persistent hike in power tariff, the AAP leader said his party was formulating a plan to revive the ‘bijli andolan’ (agitation for power) to lodge a protest against repeated increase in power tariff.

The AAP leader said the unfortunate death of Fatehveer, who remained trapped in a deep bore well for five days, was a failure of the government and the administration.