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Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann unwell, skips tour to flood-hit areas with Kejriwal
AAP national convener met Mann to enquire after his health before leaving for flood-affected Sultanpur Lodhi. Punjab AAP chief Aman Arora is accompanying him.
Chief minister Bhagwant Mann is suffering from viral fever and could not accompany Aam Aadmi Party national convener and former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal to assess the flood-hit areas of Punjab on Thursday.
Doctors attending to him at his residence in Chandigarh said he should be fine by the evening. Mann is to chair a cabinet meeting on Friday.
The chief minister had toured flood-affected areas in Ferozepur district on Tuesday and met scores of people.
His health worsened on Thursday morning, prompting Kejriwal to visit his house to enquire after his health before leaving for flood-affected areas in Sultanpur Lodhi. Punjab AAP chief Aman Arora is accompanying him.
Kejriwal had arrived in Punjab on Wednesday evening to assess the flood situation. He was to visit Patiala district as well but that leg of the tour was cancelled at the last minute. The flood situation in Patiala district turned grim on Thursday afternoon when the overflowing Ghaggar breached the embankment of the Bhakra Main Canal (Narwana branch) near Sarala village in Ghanaur. Residents were evacuated from Ghanaur and Rajpura blocks.
Punjab is facing one of its worst flood disasters in four decades due to the overflowing Sutlej, Beas, and Ravi rivers and seasonal rivulets caused by heavy rainfall in their catchment areas in Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. Additional heavy rain in the state has intensified the flooding situation. The deluge has claimed 37 lives so far and impacted over 3.55 lakh people. Crops, particularly paddy, over 1.75 lakh hectares are submerged due to the floods. Paddy growers are worst-hit as the kharif crop was to be harvested in October.
Punjab agriculture minister Gurmeet Singh Khuddian and MLA Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal met Chouhan in Amritsar on Thursday morning and submitted a memorandum, seeking ₹2,000 crore as financial assistance in the first phase for the losses caused by floods in the Ajnala assembly constituency.
They also demanded early release of the state’s pending ₹60,000 crore from the Centre.
