Opposition takes potshots at Bhagwant Mann govt at Amritsar fair

GS Paul

Baba Bakala, August 31

All political parties indulged in a blame game on Rakhar Punia today, the annual politico-religious fair held at Baba Bakala, even as the occasion turned out to be a low-key affair in comparison to the previous years.

While Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann was absent, Cabinet ministers addressed a gathering and ended up counting the party’s achievements, urging people’s support for the upcoming parliamentary elections.

A representative of the party said against the expectation of a gathering of over 10,000, only between 2,500-3,000 turned up.

“Actually, our crowd-puller (Bhagwant Mann) was not there. He had visited Gurdwara Baba Bakala Sahib, a day in advance as he had a prior appointment with Arvind Kejriwal for the day. We believe that’s why there was less gathering”, he said.

AAP’s officiating president Principal Budh Ram said the Centre intended to overpower the AAP’s state regime through the Punjab Governor, but it would never be successful. He said Punjab was reeling under debt due to the ill-conceived policies of the earlier tenures of the SAD-BJP and the Congress.

From the SAD’s stage, Sukhbir Badal advocated that ESMA should be invoked against the CM for abandoning Punjab, when it was in the grip of floods, only to accompany his boss Arvind Kejriwal to poll-bound states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

SAD senior leader Bikram Majithia said the AAP government had been spending Rs 750 crore on advertisement but had only Rs 186 crore for farmers and farm labourers.

From the Congress side, PPCC president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring blamed the AAP’s leniency for not cleaning the drains which led to the immense loss of residents and farmers due to recent floods in Punjab. Others present were Partap Singh Bajwa, MP Gurjeet Aujla, former MLA Santokh Singh Bhalaipur.