Assembly session drama to hide SDRF disbursal: Sukhbir

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Saturday termed the special Assembly session called by ruling AAP over flood relief efforts a “drama” enacted to “hide the abject failure” in releasing relief money from the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF).

Addressing mediapersons in Ajnala, he said the session had also been called to shift the blame on the Centre.

During his visit to the state, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had mentioned that the Punjab Government had Rs 12,000 crore in the fund, stoking a row with ruling AAP questioning the claim.

Following the remark, the Opposition in the state has repeatedly demanded that the government come clean on the exact numbers.

Sukhbir raised the issue after he flagged off 20 trolleys loaded with maize silage for 100 flood-hit villages in Ajnala. Lashing out at the AAP government, he said instead of providing relief from the SDRF, the ruling party wasted time by convening the special session of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha and seeking central aid. He accused Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann of “enacting a drama” to “hide his abject failure” in releasing money for flood-hit farmers and labourers.

“Instead of using the special session to broaden the scope of compensation by going beyond the five-acre limit per farmer, the Chief Minister chose to waste crores of rupees in the propaganda exercise,” he said.

“AAP has become the first ruling party in the history of Punjab to troop to the well of the House to protest against the Union Government (over the central aid). This was done to shift the responsibility for providing relief to the centre,” he added.

Sukhbir also demanded that accountability for “mismanagement of the operations” of the Ranjit Sagar Dam and the Shahpur barrage be fixed at the top instead of targeting level-rung engineers. He said it should be disclosed who allowed water to accumulate during the monsoon before it was “released in one go”.

“This abrupt release of 2.5 lakh cusecs of water for three days (from the dam) destroyed crops in lakhs of acres,” he said.

Sukhbir said the gates of the Madhopur headworks collapsed due to “criminal negligence” on the part of the AAP government.

“The government did not pay heed to written requests for the repair of the barrage six months before the monsoon,” he alleged.