The fireworks have already begun, especially between the two key parties in the fray—the Congress and the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). The Sunday Guardian decided, therefore, that it was time for a face-off between Captain Amarinder Singh of the Congress and Sukhbir Singh Badal of the SAD, and shared a common set of questions with both in a bid to gauge their perceptions about the forthcoming elections.
The responses provide an interesting insight into the minds of two of Punjab’s tallest politicians pitted in these polls. Of course, as expected, both used this opportunity to launch a scathing attack on each other, with Sukhbir Badal using the occasion to promote his anti-Congress agenda and Captain Amarinder Singh focusing on his commitment to fulfil all the promises made to the people of Punjab once he comes to power.
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Ask Prashant Kishor how he will fulfil the promises he has made in Amarinder’s name: Sukhbir Badal
Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal responds to the questions sent to him by The Sunday Guardian
Q: With the Assembly elections expected to be held just about two months from now, how do you see your party’s prospects panning out in Punjab?
A: It’s there for everyone to see. We are growing in strength by the day. We have fulfilled our election promises and are going into the election on the development plank, by showcasing the work done by us. Our rivals including Congress and AAP have no agenda and are both indulging in political stunts only. Politically too we have distributed most of our party tickets and our campaign is off to a good start. The Congress, on the other hand, has just come out with half its tickets and is delaying the release of the second half, fearing an open revolt. AAP is already facing an open revolt in its ranks and its senior leaders are abandoning it in droves. Even as we are peaking at the right time, the Congress and AAP have still to get their act together.
Q: Both the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are pursuing their campaigns aggressively. Do you think they will be able to regain some of the lost ground in the weeks to the election?
A: Well the AAP campaign is there for all to see. They held a Majha Fateh rally recently in which they carted people from different parts of the state, as well as from Delhi and Haryana. There are photographs to prove this contention. During his last visit to Punjab, AAP volunteers held protests in front of Arvind Kejriwal and accused him of selling tickets to criminals. In case of the Congress there is no campaign on the ground. The Congress is going in for political stunts, with Prashant Kishor, the real incharge and not Captain Amarinder Singh. A helpless Amarinder is being made to look like a fool by his managers, who first made him promise a loan waiver scheme in Punjab and then sent him to beg for the same at the door of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. If Amarinder knew he could not waive off the loans, why did he play this fraud on the farmers of Punjab?
Q: Do you think state-relevant issues such as drugs, unemployment, crime, atrocities against Dalits etc have been sidelined by the demonetisation issue?
A: The issues you mention are part of the propaganda unleashed by the Congress and AAP and it is regrettable that your publication has also fallen into this trap. The real issue in Punjab is the transformation which has occurred in the state in the last ten years. The state has become power surplus, with the addition of 13,000 MW of power. Captain Amarinder did not add a single unit as CM. All major roads are being four-laned at a cost of Rs 32,000 crore. Two international and three domestic airports have come up in the state. Nearly all major towns have been provided hundred per cent water and sewerage facilities. You as a publication should also go and see the change at the ground level.
Q: Talking of issues, your stand on the SYL canal is no different from that of the Congress government, which has also been maintaining that it will not allow a single drop of water to go out of the state. Then why do you think you’ll be able to achieve what the Congress could not do with regard to protecting the water rights of Punjab?
A: Well, it is a matter of historical record that the SYL is the creation of the Congress and the SAD has always opposed it. Captain Amarinder welcomed Indira Gandhi as MP of Patiala through advertisements and was by her side when she started work on digging of the canal. Earlier Indira Gandhi had browbeaten then CM Darbara Singh to force him to give Punjab waters to Haryana. The Punjab Congress has only done lip service while protesting against the SYL. CM S. Parkash Singh Badal has ended the SYL itself by handing land acquired for the canal back to the farmers. Our stand has delivered results. Whatever was done by Amarinder was not sufficient to protect the interests of the state.
Q: You have made a lot of promises to the people of Punjab. How do you propose to meet the expenses to realise these promises? Or will they remain on paper, to be looked at once again at the time of the next elections?
A: The SAD-BJP government has never made a promise it cannot fulfil. We promised to provide free power for the irrigation of fields to Punjab farmers in 1997 and have stuck to this promise even as Amarinder withdrew this facility when he came to power in 2002. We promised to make the state power surplus and have fulfilled this promise. In future also we will keep our promises. But in case of the Congress you need to ask PK (Prashant Kishor) how he aims to fulfil the promises he has announced in Amarinder’s name. As I see it, the state will need Rs 70,000 crore to waive off all farmer loans. If one was to take into other promises including giving tablets to youth and giving them unemployment allowance, they will need Rs 1.5 lakh crore. How will they generate this amount? And their track record shows they aren’t even capable of generating own state resources. The excise collection from liquor sales in Punjab decreased for the first time in the history of the state when Amarinder was CM, because he handed over the liquor monopoly to the Ponty Chaddha group. From a revenue of Rs 1,429 crore in 2002, it came down to Rs 1,368 crore in 2007. Please compare this with our track record. We have increased excise revenue by 272 per cent in the last nine years. Similar is the case with regard to VAT collection. We have improved in all other financial parameters also and are capable of delivering results in future also. The Congress has always taken Punjab down when in power and cannot be trusted to deliver anything. In fact the Congress Legislature Party leader, when asked by me in the Vidhan Sabha to state five, four or even one thing done by the previous Amarinder Singh government, said it had done patchwork on roads. They have to answer, not us, as to how they will fulfil their promises.
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I will throw the Badals in jail, if they are found guilty: Amarinder Singh
Q: With the Assembly elections expected to be held just about two months from now, how do you see your party’s prospects panning out in Punjab?
A: There is a strong and distinct wave in favour of the Punjab Congress, which is there for all to see. The response the Congress leaders have been getting from people on the ground is remarkable, and a complete contrast to the poor show of the Akali and AAP leaders at their campaign rallies. Even the Badals and Arvind Kejriwal personally have failed to touch a chord with the people of Punjab, who can see through their election gimmicks and fraudulent claims. The open rebellion faced by both parties has also given a fillip to the Congress, which has emerged as the only stable and feasible choice for the electorate.
On the ground, too, public mood is not in favour of the Badals or Kejriwal. While Kejriwal has shown his true colours with large-scale corruption and sex scandals in his party, the Badals have been plundering the state to fill their own pockets. The state has been plunged into a web of drugs and liquor menace, with the entire economy in the stranglehold of the Badals, who have plunged Punjab into economic, agricultural and industrial chaos.
The Congress really has no competition at all in these elections.
Q: Both the Akalis and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are pursuing their campaigns aggressively. Do you think they will be able to regain some of the lost ground in the weeks to the election?
A: There is no ground left for them to recover and no campaign worth talking about. As I said earlier, both have failed to establish any grassroots connect with the people, who can see through their election gimmickry and their falsehoods.
As far as the Akalis are concerned, the people gave them 10 long years to prove their sincerity and commitment to the interests of Punjab. But they spent these years plundering the state and plunging it into its worst ever crisis across all fronts—economic, social, law and order. Agriculture and industry have hit an unprecedented low, Akali-patronised mafia is ruling the roost and the future generation has been ruined with drugs.
The people of Punjab have had enough of the Badals and their cronies and are not going to give them another opportunity to further destroy their lives. Mark my word, once the code of conduct is in place, the Badals and their cronies will not be allowed by the people to even enter the villages, leave alone campaign.
AAP, on the other hand, did start off well, with its lofty ideals and promises, but soon lost the script as a result of the widespread corruption and other scandals gripping senior party leaders. The rebellion spreading in the party is a clear sign of things having gone drastically wrong in Arvind Kejriwal’s party in the last two months.
In fact, neither the SAD nor the AAP have any development agenda to take forward in their campaigns and are thus reduced to indulging in baseless accusations and unfounded allegations against the Congress.
Q: Do you think state-relevant issues such as drugs, unemployment, crime, atrocities against Dalits etc., have been sidelined by the demonetisation issue?
A: Demonetisation, no doubt, has cast a long shadow on all other problems faced by the people. But to say that it has completely sidelined other issues would not be correct. How can the people of Punjab forget the pain, the suffering, the anguish, the atrocities, the harassment and the devastation they have been subjected to by the Badal-led government over the past 10 years?
The Badals have destroyed the future of Punjab’s youth by failing to provide them with employment and drawing them into a net of drug and liquor abuse. In the name of development, they failed to deliver on any of the promises in the past 10 years and are now trying to hastily push through all kinds of schemes and proposals in a desperate bid to woo the voters.
Can the Dalit families who have suffered at the hands of the Badals and their supporters forget the atrocities committed on them? Can the industries that have been forced to close down or flee the state under the Badal misrule forgive them for driving them to this situation?
I cannot bring back the lives of the farmers who have committed suicide due to the anti-agriculture policies of the Badals, but I can promise that not a single farmer will, in future, be pushed to such extremes. I will make sure that their debt burdens are written off as soon as my government comes to power, irrespective of whether or not their Prime Minister supports the Congress efforts to alleviate the sufferings of the farming community.
In my opinion, demonetisation will only chip further away at whatever is left of the Akali prospects of a face-saving in these elections. If they were getting 30 seats earlier, now they’ll be left with 20.
Q: Talking of issues, your stand on the SYL canal is no different from that of the Akali government, which has also been maintaining that it will not allow a single drop of water to go out of the state. Then why do you think you’ll be able to achieve what the Akalis could not do with regard to protecting the water rights of Punjab?
A: It’s completely wrong to say that there’s no difference in the Congress and SAD stand on SYL. Had that been the case, the Supreme Court verdict in the matter would not have been against Punjab. The Badals failed to adequately defend Punjab’s rights in the case in the Apex Court. In fact, it was Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal who sold off Punjab’s interests to Haryana in exchange of a paltry amount. He did not think twice before signing off the state’s water rights to Haryana merely because of his personal relationship with Devi Lal, the then Chief Minister of the neighbouring state.
And all this is documented, unlike the unfounded and baseless charges he keeps making against me. So where is the similarity between our stands? It was my government which brought in the Punjab Termination of Water Agreements Act, 2004, to save the state’s water. What have the Badals done except put the people’s survival at stake?
Q: You have made a lot of promises to the people of Punjab—loan waiver for the farmers, power and other incentives for the industries, job for the youth. How do you propose to meet the expenses to realise these promises? Or will they remain on paper, to be looked at once again at the time of the next elections?
A: I have never regressed on any promise. You can check the record of my previous government and see that I met every single one of the promises I had made before the elections back then. It is with all sincerity and total commitment that I have made certain promises to my people, and I will make sure that I fulfil every one of them. Funds will be budgeted accordingly, and I will ensure that every penny of the allocated funds reaches the intended beneficiary, unlike under the present government where the money earmarked for public welfare was being regularly diverted into the pockets of the Badals and their cronies.
The palatial properties and the flourishing businesses the Badals have built in the past 10 years are the real reason why they failed to deliver on any promise made to the people of Punjab before the elections. The scam- and mafia-riddled Akali government has looted public money to the tune of crores of rupees through its land, transport, media, liquor, drugs and sand mafias, which it has been openly patronising to promote its vested interests, backed by a host of scams.
I have said it earlier, and I say it again, I will take back from the Badals every single paisa of the money they have looted from the people of Punjab. And that money will go into ensuring the welfare of the people, including the fulfilment of my promises.
I will seize all the buses from the Badals’ transport companies and give them to the youth to provide them employment. I will reopen all the cases of crime and corruption in which the Badals’ complicity is evident and will bring them to book. I will throw them in jail, if they are found guilty, as I did before.
I am committed to bringing smiles back to the faces of the people of my state and I promise I will not fail.
