With 19 of the 23 districts in Punjab continuing to reel under floodwater, the Opposition parties have upped the ante against the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the State.
Former Union Minister and senior Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Tuesday asked Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to immediately call a special session of the State Assembly to discuss the grave flood situation in Punjab.
“Hundreds of villages and thousands of acres of land with the crop is under water while you [Mr. Mann] are flying in the heavens far away from the beleaguered whose only sin is that they entrusted their destiny in your hands. It is time you put a stop to your publicity jamboree and got down to brass tacks to save the people reeling under flood fury,” she said, demanding an immediate special Assembly session.
Ms. Badal, talking to journalists, during her visit to flood-affected areas, said that while people in villages were losing lives, crops, cattle, and property there was hardly any help from the government, which is resulting in anguish among them. “..villagers were pooling their resources on their own to save their villages from water gushing in as the administration is absent... Even in this hour of grave tragedy, the Chief Minister and his AAP government are busy in photo ops for fake publicity,” she alleged.
According to a government statement, as many as 38 people have lost their lives due to floods in the state, 15 are injured while 2 are still missing. The statement added that 1,432 villages have been affected by the flood till 8 am on July 18. The 19 districts that are affected by floods include - Tarn Taran, Ferozepur, Fatehgarh Sahib, Faridkot, Hoshiarpur, Rupnagar, Kapurthala, Patiala, Moga, Ludhiana, SAS Nagar, Jalandhar, Sangrur, SBS Nagar, Fazilka, Gurdaspur, Mansa, Bathinda and Pathankot.
AAP accused of laxity
Earlier, Punjab’s Leader of the Opposition, Congress’s Partap Singh Bajwa accused the AAP government of adopting laxity in making the proper arrangements that could have minimised the disaster caused by the recent floods in several districts.
“It is only because of the mismanagement and lack of proper arrangements in the State, the floods wreaked havoc in almost half of the State,” he said in a statement.
The newly appointed BJP’s Punjab president Sunil Jakhar also took a dig at the AAP government over the alarming flood situation and accused its leaders of being busy in photo ops, instead of taking concrete steps to assist the people.
In neighbouring Haryana, the Leader of the Opposition, Congress’s Bhupinder Singh Hooda, hit out at the BJP-led government, saying “..while most of the districts of the State are completely submerged in flood water and people are facing a shortage of food items, electricity, water, and fodder for cattle due to water-logging, also crops of the farmers have been completely ruined yet the government is not taking effective steps for draining out rainwater.”
