Badal, December 30
SAD president Parkash Singh Badal today termed the Central Government’s package of Rs 715 crore for 1984 riot victims as an “eyewash”.

The victims should have been fully rehabilitated, he said. He was addressing a press conference here today.

He said it was a “massacre” in which thousands of people lost their lives and scores were ruined. He said the government should give the riot victims a patient hearing and prepare their separate files before handing them appropriate compensation and employment opportunities.

As regards the state, he said corruption would be one of the key issues in the coming Assembly elections, as “everybody from a minister to a peon was mired in corruption” in the state government.

He said despite creating so much hullabaloo of his having assets worth Rs 3,500 crore, the CM could not prove anything in the past four years.

He accused the government of failing on all fronts and indulging in “wrong propaganda”.

Terming development as another prominent issue to figure in the elections, he alleged the Congress government didn’t fulfil any of its promises and was only staging a “drama” a year ahead of the elections.

He said though the government had announced free power for the farmers, it was yet to issue necessary instructions to the PSEB and bills were still being issued to the farmers.

He said on the one hand the government was contemplating to set up defence and law universities in the state, on the other it could not even fill vacant posts in government schools.

Stating that all development works had come to a grinding halt, he said nothing had moved on ground in the Bathinda refinery project.

He said unemployment was rising, people had no irrigation and drinking water and health was out of reach for the common man in the state.