M A I N   N E W S

CM to blame for giving jobs to the tainted: Badal
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 6
Reacting to The Tribune expose on re-selection of "tainted" candidates to the PCS (Executive) cadre this year, Shiromani Akali Dal President Parkash Singh Badal today dared the Punjab Chief Minister to prove his anti-corruption credentials.

Mr Badal, in a statement released through the party's media office today, said: "It is an irony that Amarinder's government has nominated to the PPSC candidates which this government had itself held guilty in the PPSC job scandal. A greater irony is that these officers have been selected to the PPSC by the new chairman appointed by Capt Amarinder Singh."

Holding the CM responsible for this new scandal in selections to the PPSC, Mr Badal said: "The latest job-for-cash scam has ripped apart the fig-leaf of his anti-corruption drive and established beyond any element of doubt that the CMO in Chandigarh had become a den of corruption." Mr Badal also referred to the The Tribune report, saying it had brought to light how some candidates, including Ms Inderjit Kaur Kang, sister-in-law of the Congress MP from Jalandhar Mr Balbir Singh, had been taken into the PCS despite their indictment in certain departmental matters.

"Now that these controversial nominations have been made by the government and accepted by the PPSC, will the CM arrest the chairman of the Commission and own moral responsibility? Will he clarify as to how much money changed hands for appointing these nominees even as they faced court proceedings and where did this money actually go?", asked Mr Badal.

CM misusing police to promote Congress, says Badal
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 6
The president of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), Mr Parkash Singh Badal, today accused the Punjab Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh, of deploying the police in a systematic manner with the objective of misusing it for the promotion of the interests of the ruling party during the Lok Sabha elections.

Mr Badal has sought the intervention of the Chief Election Commissioner in the matter.

The present exercise, Mr Badal said, was in continuation of similar malpractices the present government had indulged in the past beginning with the byelection in Malout in 2002 when the government had gone to the extent of converting police stations into polling booths.

This year too, the government had put in place an elaborate strategy under which officers, who have earned media notoriety for repression and vendetta against members and leaders of the SAD, have been posted in politically sensitive constituencies. Their sole brief is to unleash a reign of terror against Akali workers and browbeat them to stay away from polling booths.

Mr Badal said that Mr Rajinder Singh, who openly interferred in the elections to the executive of the SGPC and the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) in 2002, had been posted as Inspector-General of Police, Patiala zone, from where Mrs Preneet Kaur, wife of the Chief Minister was to contest the Lok Sabha poll.

Mr G.S. Grewal, who is a complainant for allegedly offering bribe to the Shiromani Akali Dal general secretary, Mr Sukhbir Singh Badal, had been posted as DIG in Faridkot from where the latter is the SAD candidate.

Similarly, Mr Surinder Pal Singh, who is the sole complainant and investigating officer against nearly all Akali leaders falsely implicated in corruption cases, had been given the dual charge of SP, Vigilance and SSP, Ropar, which was a key constituency and likely to witness a straight contest between Akali stalwart Sukhdev Singh Libra and a senior party colleague and confidant of the Chief Minister, Mr Badal said.