Badal warns people against 'sinister moves' of Congress, AAP

Slamming the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for their "anti-Punjab" stance, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal urged the people not to "blindly follow the sinister moves" of these parties as they were "inimical to the interests of the state".

Addressing a function to mark the martyrdom day of revolutionary Karnail Singh Issru, who had laid down his life during the liberation of Goa from the Portuguese, here at his native village, he alleged that the Congress and the AAP were "two sides of the same coin".

Claiming that these parties had a "proven track record" of being "anti-Punjab and anti-Sikh", Badal asked the people of the state to remain vigilant of their "nefarious" designs.

He accused the Congress of "irrelevantly meddling" in the social, political, economic and religious affairs of Punjab and alleged that successive governments of the party at the Centre had "deliberately denied" the state of Punjabi-speaking areas, its capital Chandigarh and its legitimate share of river waters.

"How can a true Punjabi forget and forgive Operation Blue Star and the killing of innocent Sikhs in the 1984 carnage," said Badal.

He accused the Congress of being the "perpetrator of a deep-rooted conspiracy" to deprive Punjab of its waters by constructing the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal, adding that the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had laid the foundation of the project to "rob the state of its waters".

"Congress leaders are now shedding crocodile tears on the issue while forgetting that the current chief of the party's state unit, Amarinder Singh, had welcomed Indira Gandhi to lay the foundation of the canal in the 1980s," alleged Badal.

Training his guns on the AAP, the Chief Minister said in the garb of Aam Aadmi, the party was nothing but a "band of fugitives and opportunists" who were vying to attain political power "at any cost".

He claimed that "this new party" had no sympathy for the people of Punjab and alleged that in the Supreme Court, the AAP government in Delhi had taken a stance contrary to the interests of the state on the SYL issue, adding that only the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) was the "true custodian" of its interests.

He said the last almost 10 years of rule of the SAD-BJP combine in the state was a testimony to the fact that it had honoured all of its promises.

"The alliance delivers whereas, the other political parties mislead by unleashing malicious propaganda," Badal said and called upon the people to let the "control of their destiny" remain in the "right hands" by ensuring a third consecutive SAD-BJP government in the state in the 2017 Assembly election.

The Chief Minister said every vote for the alliance would be one for "stability, development, peace and right governance".

"Secure the future of the younger generations by supporting the ruling alliance so that the ongoing development of the state gets a further boost," he said.

Listing the major initiatives of his government, Badal said it has supplied free electricity to farmers at a cost of Rs 50,000 crore and doubled the pension amount under various pro-poor and pro-people social security schemes.

He said his government has launched a unique scheme to provide interest-free crop loans worth Rs 50,000 to farmers.

He said in another "historic" decision, it has been decided that farmers would be provided with a health insurance cover of Rs 50,000 and an insurance of Rs 5 lakh in case of accidental death or incapacitation of the head of the family.

The Chief Minister expressed satisfaction over the "overwhelming" success of the Mukh Mantri Tirath Yatra scheme and claimed that the people were availing the benefits of this "first-of-its-kind" scheme in the country "enthusiastically".

Earlier, he paid floral tributes to Karnail Singh Issru.