Sarai Naga (Muktsar),
April 18
In violation of the model code of conduct, the Punjab Chief Minister,
Capt Amarinder Singh, today announced that state government would give one year
remission in sentence to each convict on the occasion of the 500th birth
anniversary of Guru Angad Dev.
Capt Amarinder Singh, while addressing the
congregation at the concluding function of the birth anniversary celebration of
Guru Angad Dev here, also announced that all the convicts, who were 70 years of
above, would be released from all jails in the state.
The Chief Minister made
this announced after Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president H.S. Hanspal
urged him to grant relief to prisoners of Punjab on the occasion of the guru’s
500th birth anniversary. The Chief Minister said that Punjab Government would
set up a university of animal sciences at Ludhiana which would be named after
Guru Angad Dev.
Later, when asked whether his announcement had violated the
model code of conduct, he said that his government could not wait for the moment
when the code would be lifted. He said that if the Akalis had some problem with
his announcement, they should approach the Election Commission.
When asked
about his comments over the nomination of Mr Jagdish Tytler and Mr Sajjan Kumar,
who were suspected to be behind the anti-Sikh riots in 1984 in Delhi the Chief
Minister said so far they had not been convicted by any court and hence they
could not be accused of having engineered the riots.
When asked why he (CM) had
been accusing former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his family of
indulging in corruption the CM pointed out that he did not say anything and
added that the matter was in court which sent both the Badals to jail in a
corruption case registered against them.
When asked to comment on the
advertisement campaigns against him he said he had been enjoying the
advertisements, appearing in certain newspapers.
While claiming that the
Congress had not indulged in any advertisement campaign against the Badals so
far, he pointed out that Congress would launch its ad campaign by comparing the
performances of its government in the past two years with the performance of
Badal’s government in five years. He said the Congress ad campaign would deliver
a fatal blow to the Akalis politically. He claimed that the Congress and its
alliance partner would win 11 seats in Punjab. He alleged that Mr Badal failed
to provide people with water, electricity and other basic amenities.
To a
question, Mr Hanspal said Mr Raminder Awla would remain president of the Punjab
Youth Congress (PYC) despite the fact that an 11-member coordination committee
for managing its affairs headed by Mr B.K. Hari Parsad, secretary, AICC, had
been constituted to look after the affairs of the Lok Sabha elections.
