Amarinder hails Channi's appointment as CLP leader

Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh today hailed the appointment of Charanjit Singh Channi as the Congress Legislative Party leader.
Amarinder thanked Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi for reposing confidence in the young and promising leaders of the party in Punjab.
PCC president, in a statement here, also hailed the appointment of Bharat Bhushan Ashu as the Deputy CLP leader and Navtej Cheema as the Chief Whip of the party in the state legislature.
Amarinder congratulated the three young leaders expressing hope that they will come up to the expectations of the party leadership and workers, and perform the role assigned to them in the best possible manner.

He said the party leadership and workers will be looking up to them to take on the government in the most effective manner in Vidhan Sabha.
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Former Punjab Congress chief and Rajya Sabha MP Pratap Singh Bajwa has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention to ensure safe return of the youths.
"I humbly urge you to immediately intervene and take up this pressing matter with your Malaysian counterpart, direct the Indian Embassy officials at Malaysia to render all necessary assistance and help the stranded youth and ensure their safe return to India," Bajwa said in his letter to Modi.

He also claimed the eight youths are "victims of a human trafficking racket" who were duped by travel agents of huge sums of money.
"After undergoing immense suffering at the hands of their tormenters the youth escaped from captivity and have now taken refuge at a gurdwara in Malaysia," he further said.
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Replying to a question over the Punjabi language and culture being allegedly ignored under the Badals, he said, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was responsible for compromising Punjab and Punjabis' interests.
"In fact, Badal has always played with the Panthic and Punjabi sentiments for his personal benefit," he said, alleging people like Badal were instrumental in "breaking up Punjab into small pieces and fragments."

He said even the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) problem Punjab is faced with is the byproduct of the "narrow and sectarian" legacy of people like Badal "who went on to sacrifice state's interests."
On his opposition to CBI probe into the multi-crore drug scandal, he said, "My only concern was that it would have been delayed as the central agency usually takes about eight to ten years to complete the investigations."
He said there were some central agencies like the Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax department, Narcotics Control Bureau and the Revenue Intelligence involved in the investigations.
"After the BJP-led NDA government took over and Arun Jaitley became the Union Finance Minister, the probe has been put into suspended animation. All the central agencies come under Jaitley and the Centre is trying to help the Badals. This is the tragedy of it. Here is a case which is going to break the nexus of drug addiction in Punjab, but the BJP government is helping them, it is a sad thing. I am very upset about it," he stated.

However, he said, "It is a the matter of five months more when the Congress will form the government in Punjab. We will speed up the probe and ensure that each and every culprit is put behind bars. I just don't say, I mean it."
Earlier, Singh inducted senior Akali leader Jagjivanpal Singh into the party here today.