Main opposition Congress today demanded a special session of Punjab Assembly to discuss the "actual financial condition" of the state.
Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Sunil Jakhar today urged Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to discuss the financial condition of Punjab and to lay down the facts pertaining to the grants received and their utilisation during the UPA regime (2004-2014) and under the present NDA government and the previous NDA government (1999 to 2004) in the House.
"CM Badal has himself accepted that Punjab has been suffering from poor financial condition and is in dire need of special economic package from the central government.
"The people of the state have the right to know the actual financial condition of Punjab," Jakhar said in a statement here.
Notably, Chief Minister Badal, while speaking at Begowal in Kapurthala yesterday, had said that the NDA government must "do justice" by extending the financial assistance to the state as it was "rightfully" demanding economic package from the Centre.
Badal had charged that Punjab, which was a once a prosperous state in the country, had suffered a lot due to the "discriminatory attitude of the successive Congress governments at the Centre".
Jakhar said that the Congress-led Centre had put Punjab in the category of the states with poor financial condition during 13th Finance commission.
"Being a state with poor financial conditions, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh never denied help to Punjab and Chief Minister himself has said on a number of occasions about the help extended by Singh to Punjab from time to time," he said.
He also reminded that the former Prime Minister had sanctioned projects worth Rs 2,240 crore to tackle the problem of wet areas in the state.
"However, the present BJP-led Centre has cancelled the projects, which were sanctioned by the previous UPA government and ruling Shiromani Akali Dal has never expressed its objections over the anti-state decisions," Jakhar claimed.
