BJP lashes at Capt Amarinder Govt in Punjab

Punjab unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday maintained that Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh’s 13-month in office witnessed new taxes, hiked power tariffs and skyrocketing sand-gravel prices with the farmers awaiting full loan waiver and government employees waiting for their salaries.

 Describing the Congress government as “complete failure”, Punjab BJP leaders vice-president, Harjit Singh Grewal and secretary Vineet Joshi stated that in its thirteenth month in office, the Government’s decision to impose fresh taxes on people of Punjab has come as a big blow to already tax burdened, financially crippled Punjabis.

Grewal and Joshi, while releasing Congress government’s report card, maintained that Capt Amarinder has done what was not done in the last 15 years — that is taxing the people of Punjab.

“In addition to Rs 2,400 per annum development tax on the income tax payers of Punjab, Capt Amarinder Government has levied five taxes in the name of social security surcharge including Rs two per litre on petrol and diesel under the Punjab Value Added Tax Act-2005, one percent on registration of vehicles under Punjab Motor Vehicles Act, 10 percent on transportation vehicles, five percent surcharge on monthly electricity bills and 10 percent share of the excise duty and license fee as chargeable under the Punjab Excise Act,” they said.

Criticizing the government for also increasing electricity tariffs, BJP leaders maintained that prices of sand-gravel have increased six-fold during past one year putting brakes on developmental works worth Rs 2,000 crore and the people are lamenting.

BJP leaders alleged that Finance Minister Manpreet Badal’s brother-in-law, Jaijeet ‘JoJo’ Johal, openly made fun of dalits’ skin colour during a protest. “Bathinda police didn’t file a case even though the SC Commission ordered for it. On the top of it, Capt Amarinder and Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar chose to stay tightlipped, which is highly condemnable,” they said.

They maintained that the state farming community is a suffering lot as the farmers, who had stopped repaying the loans in the hope of complete loan waiver, are now being booked under criminal cases.

“While Capt Amarinder government failed to fully waive off crop loans, the banks are now using dishonoured post-dated cheques (PDCs) taken from the farmers against their loans to initiate criminal cases against the defaulters and thousands of farmers in Malwa have been arrested so far,” they claimed adding that as many as 455 farmers have committed suicide during Capt AMarinder’s 13-month-rule.

Regretting the state of education in the state, the BJP leaders said that the government’s education department’s incompetence came to the fore when in some places, students were handed English question papers instead of Hindi.

“Thousands of students had to suffer because of paper leaks. The answer sheets are being evaluated in haste so that results are declared immediately…Flouting the norms, Class XII answer booklets are being evaluated by private school teachers instead of lecturers,” they said.

Taking on Education Minister Aruna Chowdhary’s statement in the Assembly that stationary and uniforms would be made available in all schools by February 28, 2018, before the commencemtn of new session, BJP leaders said that till April 17, “neither did the uniforms reach the schools, nor did the stationery”.

“Class I to V students in majority of the government schools sit on ground because benches are not available, while on the other hand, Rs 21 crore earmarked in the 2017-18 budget for purchasing benches has lapsed,” they said adding that private schools are indulging in loot, and the education minister has kept her eyes closed.