Separate stage row: Randhawa seeks Modi’s intervention

The minister wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking his immediate intervention to end this “unsolicited controversy”

CHANDIGARH

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Punjab cooperation minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa on Thursday took exception to the central government’s move to set up a “parallel stage” for the inauguration of the Kartarpur corridor.

Calling the move a brazen violation of the federal spirit of Indian Constitution, the minister wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking his immediate intervention to end this “unsolicited controversy”.

“I have been having regular meetings with the central agencies while making preparations for the inaugural function and never even a hint was given about the central government planning a separate stage,” he wrote.

Randhawa said the decision to go in for a separate stage at this juncture when the state government had already completed about 90% of the work was nothing but petty politics.

He said the foundation stone function on November 26, 2018, in which the Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu participated, was organised by the Punjab government and not any central agency. That function was an example of total coordination between the state government and the central agencies, he said.