PM has played a joke on Punjab: Badal

Ludhiana, Dec 20 (UNI) Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president and former chief minister Prakash Singh Badal today claimed that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had ''played a cruel joke on the people of the state'', during his day-long visit to Punjab.

''The two projects--four-laning of the Amritsar-Wagah highway and the 600-MW Goindwal Thermal Power project--were both cleared by the NDA-government headed by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee,'' Mr Badal said while reacting to the announcements made by the Prime Minister in Amritsar today.

Talking to mediapersons after chairing a meeting of the district jathedars of his party, Mr Badal said Dr Singh offered nothing concrete to Punjab and Punjabis. ''In fact Mr Vajpayee had inagurated both the four-laning project and the thermal power project'', he claimed.

The Congress at the centre had always adopted a step-motherly treatment towards Punjab, he alleged and added that Punjab had always benefitted when the Centre was under non-Congress governments.

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