Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Sunday took on Akali President Sukhbir Singh Badal for deceiving the people by allegedly spreading misinformation on the recently released Good Governance Index (GGI) report, which was actually a reflection of the poor governance under the erstwhile SAD-BJP regime.
The Chief Minister took on the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief over his total ignorance about the state, which his party, in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had misruled for a decade, to pull it down on every index of progress.
Referring to the GGI report released by the Government of India on December 25, 2019, Captain Amarinder pointed out that the data used to prepare the index dated back to FY 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17, when Punjab was under the regime of the Akalis and the BJP.
Captain Amarinder further pointed out that anyone involved in serious and responsible governance would know that indices of progress are developed over time and any development process translates into visible outcomes only in subsequent reports. "But Sukhbir would not know that considering that he never knew the meaning of responsible and good governance," Captain Amarinder quipped.
"For 10 years, their (SAD-BJP) government messed up with Punjab on every count, destroying every sector and pulling the state down to the pits with respect to its social, economic and other key aspects of growth. No wonder the people threw them out in 2017, and in every election thereafter," said Captain Amarinder.
"Yet, Sukhbir and his associates had clearly not learnt any lessons from their mistakes, and continued to believe that their deceptions and falsehoods would eventually succeed in befooling the people of Punjab once," he added.
But, said the Chief Minister, "that is not going to happen, as the people are much more knowledgeable and intelligent than Sukhbir believed them to be." People want progress and development, not chicanery and falsehoods, he added.
Pointing to the Economic Governance indicator data used in the report, the Chief Minister said it related to 2016-17, thus reflecting the progress in the sector under the previous government. Even the data under Social welfare and development, sex ratio at birth, health insurance coverage and empowerment of minorities dated back to the previous government's time, he further noted.
As far as Agriculture and Allied sector was concerned, data for all indicators other than 1 with a low weightage of 0.1, has been taken from 2015-16 and 2016-17 - when the Congress government was not in power, said the Chief Minister. Under public health, data on Maternal mortality ratio, Infant mortality ratio and Immunization achievement are all from the period between 2014-2017.
"Had Sukhbir spent a little more time in properly reading the report, instead of rushing headlong into criticising the government, he might have been spared the shame of being once again exposed as a liar and deceiver, whose only agenda was to make baseless allegations against the current regime," said the Chief Minister.
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