AAP, Congress colluding to suppress real public issues in Assembly, says Sunil Jakhar
Jakhar said the Congress and AAP have a secret understanding under which the opposition avoids questioning the government on public issues and instead keeps staging walkouts
Punjab BJP president Sunil Jakhar on Wednesday accused the ruling Aam Aadmi Party and the opposition Congress of working in tacit coordination inside the Punjab Legislative Assembly to divert public attention from real issues facing the state.
Speaking to journalists here, Jakhar said the Congress and AAP have a secret understanding under which the opposition avoids questioning the government on public issues and instead keeps staging walkouts, while the ruling party continues passing resolutions that have no connection with public welfare.
Jakhar specifically reminded the Speaker that during the July 2025 session, a special session was called to enact a law on religious sacrilege, but even after six months the government has failed to produce a draft. He said if the government was truly serious about the issue, the Speaker should ask it to present the draft law for approval during the current session. He added that justice has not been delivered in the cases of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib even as two governments have already changed, and a third may change, yet the issue remains off the government’s agenda.
Turning to the Punjab Roadways controversy, Jakhar alleged that PRTC buses are being sent 500 km away to Palsana in Sikar district of Rajasthan for body fabrication and painting in colours promoting AAP to Rex Pipe and Cable Industries Ltd. He alleged that the same people are involved in this company whose firm had installed bus bodies during the previous Congress government. He accused CM Bhagwant Mann of repeatedly claiming corruption in that earlier case, but instead of taking action against the former Congress minister concerned, he allegedly used the case file only to blackmail the Congress leader. He described it as a new scam involving both old and new players, and challenged Leader of Opposition Partap Bajwa to raise the issue in the Assembly.
Jakhar launched a sharp attack on the government over illegal mining, releasing government data, which he said showed that the state collected only Rs 21.70 crore in royalty from legal mining but Rs 79.29 crore from fines imposed on illegal mining, with another Rs 89.23 crore shown as recovered from an unclear source. He said these figures clearly indicate that illegal mining far exceeds legal mining, and that too allegedly under government protection, with cases being settled through small fines while the rest of the money goes into unknown coffers.
He said the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has mandated a fine of Rs 4 lakh for a truck caught in illegal mining, but the government is imposing only Rs 6,000, which he described as collusion. He further said NGT has imposed Rs 180 crore in penalties on just 13 crushers, while there are more than 400 crushers operating in the state. Jakhar alleged the government is now bringing a law in the Assembly to override the NGT order so that the plunder of Punjab’s natural resources can continue.
He recalled that Arvind Kejriwal had promised Rs 20,000 crore in revenue from mining, adding that such revenue would be possible if NGT rates were properly implemented. With only about Rs 21 crore earned from legal mining, he said, the government had shown that the real mining being done is of Punjab’s treasury and natural resources.
Jakhar said the real face of the Bhagwant Mann government has been exposed and the public will give their response in the 2027 election.
