Congress manifesto a betrayal document: Badal
Ludhiana, Jan 30 (UNI) The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today described the Congress election manifesto for February 13 Assembly poll in Punjab, as ''the clinching documentary evidence on the betrayal of the people by Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh''.
''By backing out of its commitments on five Marla residential plots and job to at least one member of every Dalit family, the Chief Minister has finally admitted that he had played a big fraud on the poor in 2002,'' SAD chief Prakash Singh Badal said while reacting to the contents of the manifesto which was released at Chandigarh yesterday.
The ruling party's vague stand on concrete issues like the problems of the unemployed youth, the farmers' suicides and those concerning veterinarians clearly showed lack of political will in the Congress leadership, he said while addressing a media conference after addressing an election rally here today.
The Akali leader added that the Congress manifesto was nothing more than a meaningless ritual as it would be forgotten as soon as the elections were over. The people in general and the Dalits in particular had been shocked by the clause in the Congress manifesto restricting the application of the Shagun Scheme and other welfare schemes only for those living Below Poverty Line (BPL).
The former chief minister said that Capt Singh had also let down the farmers by making no mention of his commitment contained in the 2002 manifesto to give arrears of bonus of Rs 30 per quintal on paddy. ''All talk of offering concrete incentives to the farmers for diversification has vanished in thin air,'' he added.
He further said that the biggest fraud that the chief minister had played on the farmers was on the river waters issue. By agreeing to protect the present quantum of flow of Punjab's river waters to Haryana and Rajasthan, the chief minister had made a mockery of the Riparian Principle and consequently reduced the 'Punjab Termination of Agreements Act' to a mere scrap of paper, he claimed.
The SAD chief said that his party's manifesto would go far beyond making vague and wishful declarations and would contain concrete, time-bound commitments on solution of the major problems faced by the people of the state. The SAD manifesto would offer a concrete and realistic blue print for development and prosperity in Punjab with a definite time frame for the implementation of each one of its commitments, he claimed.
Earlier Mr Badal alongwith former Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister P K Dhumal addressed an election rally in favour of Mr Satpal Gosain, the BJP candidate from Ludhiana West assembly constituency.
UNI