AAP corners Capt govt on fiscal mess

Says that the steps being initiated to get out of it were even more “disappointing”

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday blamed the Congress government for “acute financial crisis” in Punjab, saying that the steps being initiated to get out of the fiscal mess were even more “disappointing”.

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In a joint statement, state core committee chairman and MLA Budh Ram, deputy leader of opposition Bibi Sarabjit Kaur Manuke, NRI state wing president Jai Singh Singh Rouri and MLA Kulwant Singh Singh Pandori said the state government had been “on a ventilator” as far as its financial position is concerned and finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal instead of salvaging the economy out of the mess was pushing it into a crisis.

“It would have been better had the government taken on all kinds of mafias and rampant top-to-bottom corruption and plugged other leakages to bring back the state economy to the pink of health,” said the leaders, while accusing the government of buying time to save its skin by resorting to immature measures.

They said government doctors were denied non-practice allowance by allowing them to do private practice, police personnel were forced to do 24-hour duty instead of eight hours and denied 13-month salary in lieu of it as they had been receiving for decades, and quantum cuts to the tune of 20% were imposed on government departments, but these would not suffice to salvage it from financial crisis.

AAP leaders said as long as the government did not show enough willpower and honesty and continued to allegedly extend protection to all kinds of mafia and end deep-rooted corruption, the state would continue to reel under the crisis.