Alleges, Modi government hell bent on destroying rural economy
Punjab Newsline, Bathinda-
Former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister and the AICC general secretary in charge of Punjab Bhupesh Baghel today said that the Congress party, as always, will contest the 2027 assembly elections under the joint and collective leadership.
“They are all our Chief Ministerial faces”, he said while referring to senior party leaders during a press conference held here today. He was flanked by the PCC president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring and the Congress Legislative Party leader Partap Singh Bajwa and others during the press conference.
Baghel maintained that except in the case of Capt Amarinder Singh, who was announced as the Chief Ministerial candidate before the elections in 2017, the Congress always has a tradition of fighting the elections under the joint leadership. “The final decision will be taken by the Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi”, he added.
Baghel was here on the last leg of the first phase of ‘MGNREGA Bachao Sangram’ in Punjab. Today was the fifth day of the party’s mass outreach programme against the BJP government’s decision to scrap MGNREGA.
He said, the people of Punjab have supported the 'MGNREGA Bachao Samagam' in overwhelming numbers with a lot of participation from the affected MGNREGA workers also. Criticising the BJP government’s decision to scrap MGNREGA, the former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister said that Prime Minister Modi was hell bent on destroying the rural economy. He pointed out, MGNREGA was a “rights based law” enacted by the Congress government to provide 100 days of work to rural labourers. He said, by scrapping MGNREGA, the Modi government has snatched their constitutional right to work.
He also referred to the provision of 60:40 ratio, to be shared between Centre and the states. He said, there are so many states, which are not able to implement central government schemes for lack of funds. When they could not provide the ten percent, as in the case of Punjab, how can they provide 40 percent, he asked.
Baghel alleged that by snatching 40 percent grant from the labourers, Prime Minister Modi wants to give it to his select few industrial friends. He said he did the same way with farmers by bringing three black laws and now was doing the same thing with the labourers. Replying to a question that BJP was alleging a scam in MGNREGA, he shot back asking, “what stopped the BJP from taking action during the last eleven years?”
The Congress general secretary expressed grave concern over the state of affairs in Punjab, saying the law and order had completely collapsed in the state. He said nine murders had taken place in Punjab in the first ten days of the new year. Similarly, he added, the state was on the verge of bankruptcy with debt crossing the Rs four lakh crore mark. He said the AAP government had not added a single school, single college or a single hospital to the state during the last four years.
He asked where the money was going as the state was accumulating huge debt and there was no development activity going on anywhere. “Is this money going to enrich the Delhi leaders?” he asked.
Instead, he added, it had refurbished and renamed the existing health infrastructure in the state as ‘Aam Aadmi Clinics’, which also had collapsed.