Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Saturday hit out at the Akalis, saying their threat of launching an agitation over power tariff hike in the State and their ultimatum in the murder cases of two former sarpanches (village heads) was a “political stunt”.
‘Police doing better job’
The Shiromani Akali Dal has threatened to take to the streets over the two issues. The Chief Minister dubbed it as mere theatrics, aimed at covering up their own “trail of misdeeds and misgovernance of 10 years during their regime”.
Hitting out at the Akali leadership over their threat of agitation if the killers of former Akali sarpanches — Baba Gurdeep Singh and Dalbir Singh Dhilwan — are not arrested within two weeks, Capt. Amarinder said the Punjab police, under the present regime, was doing a much better job at solving crime cases than it ever had under the erstwhile SAD-BJP rule.
“These kind of ultimatums might have worked under the Akali government, when many innocent people were thrown behind bars after being charged in false cases, but under my regime, no innocent person would be victimised for crimes they did not commit,” said the Chief Minister.
Capt. Amarinder also gave data to counter the hue and cry raised by the Akalis on the issue of the power tariff hike.
Power tariff data
“Why don’t you check out your own track record before lashing out at us?” he said, citing figures to show that the percentage increase during their regime, from 2007 to 2017, was much more than what his government had implemented. “The total hike under their [SAD-BJP] rule was 22.51% in 2006-07 over 2001-02, 42.13% in 2011-12 over 2006-07, 24.77% 2016-17 over 2011-12, as against a mere 13.69% in 2019-20 over 2016-17,” the Chief Minister pointed out.
