AAP using Punjab's resources to increase its reach: Partap Singh Bajwa

Chandigarh/Jalandhar, Apr 20

Challenging AAP’s national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to clarify his stand on the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal, Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Partap Singh Bajwa today accused him of using Punjab’s security paraphernalia, resources and the bureaucracy to increase his party’s footprint in other states.

Terming Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s announcement to investigate the debt of Rs 3 lakh crore piled up by previous regimes and make recovery as tactics to delay implementation of the five gurantees announced by the AAP ahead of the 2022 Assembly poll, Bajwa said the AAP was taking Punjabis for a ride.

On the issue of giving 300 units of free power every month, Bajwa said he doubted the government intention as it had so far not issued the notification.

Seeking a white paper of meeting electricity demand ahead of the paddy season, he said the government must tell from where it would arrange the power as it was being brought from the central grid between

Rs 12 and Rs 18 per unit.

Meanwhile, speaking at Nawanshahr, PCC chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring said, the statement of Haryana AAP incharge Sushil Gupta is actually that of party chief Arvind Kejriwal. We have already seen that Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann completely toes the line of Kejriwal and so does Gupta. The AAP, which has won Punjab by announcing guarantees, is now moving to appease Haryana. But Congress will thwart any such move to snatch the river rights of Punjab.”

On the issue of no reply furnished by ex-PPCC chief Sunil Jakhar, Warring said, “The matter is between him and the disciplinary committee. I am no one to comment on the issue.”

Stop politics on SYL issue: Sukhbir

• SAD chief Sukhbir Badal asked AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal not to play politics on the issue of Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal
• He said the AAP’s MP has given a guarantee on behalf of Kejriwal in Haryana that water from the SYL canal would irrigate each and every field in the state
• Sukhbir said the silence of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on this issue was being read as a weakness by Punjabis
• He said as far as the SAD was concerned, the SYL issue had been closed forever in 2016 when then CM Parkash Singh Badal denotified all the land acquired to construct the canal