Chandigarh: Senior Congress leader and Punjab’s leader of the opposition (LoP) Partap Singh Bajwa on Saturday admonished chief minister Bhagwant Mann not to behave like a Roman Emperor Nero who fiddled while Rome Burnt.
Bajwa while referring to Bhagwant Mann’s four-day-long personal visit to Rajasthan along with his wife Gurpreet Kaur said taking days off from the rigmarole of providing good governance to the people could be acceptable to the people once in a while for the chief minister.
“ However, leaving the state at the mercy of a motley of bureaucrats especially those who have been handpicked by Arvind Kejriwal from Delhi to run the affairs of Punjab is not just carelessness but criminal”, said Bajwa
Bajwa said the whole world knew about the continuing logjam & impasse over the Zira liquor distillery where both the state as well as the local Ferozepur administration have completely failed to resolve the issue which had been hanging fire for more than five months now.
Bajwa said how insensitive it is of CM Mann to enjoy winter holidays in Rajasthan when the families including children and senior citizens of the Latifpura locality of the Jalandhar were forced to spend the freezingly cold nights without roofs over their heads. Moreover, truck operators have organized an agitation in Rajpura. Previously, when Mann was on tour to southern states to woo entrepreneurs for investment, the existing businessmen and industrialists moved to UP to invest there.
“CM Bhagwant Mann cannot afford to enjoy holidays leaving the state in a critical situation or alternatively Mann must confess that the AAP government in Punjab is, in reality, being run by people like Naval Aggarwal, who were appointed by his bosses in Delhi”, LoP added.
The Sanjha Morcha and the various farmers’ outfits have already announced and decided to boycott the various committees formed by the Bhagwant Mann government as they have no trust in the officials nominated and part of these committees.
A 40-year-old man by the name of Rajbir Singh died a couple of days ago whose house was situated right next to the Zira liquor distillery. The preliminary medical reports suggested that Rajbir died because of a kidney ailment which he claimed before death occurred due to the continuous consumption of the polluted water.
Under such sensitive circumstances which could aggravate further anytime, how could Bhagwant Mann go on holiday?
“ He was continuously missing from Punjab for 15 consecutive days during Gujarat polls. Even during weekends, he was busy campaigning in Himachal Pradesh. He even went to Germany and later to Chennai and Hyderabad to fetch investment which never came. If the chief minister goes missing from the state for so many days especially when Punjab is grappling with so many problems it is actually criminal on the part of Bhagwant Mann”, added Bajwa.