Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Friday hit out at AAP and SAD for lying blatantly on the issue of political funding from private power companies, saying that unlike the illegal donations made to these parties by various shell companies, the funds provided to the Congress had nothing to do with Punjab elections or the controversial PPAs signed by the Akalis.
Political donations by certain power companies were made not to Punjab Congress but to AICC, back in 2009 and 2014, with no connection whatsoever to the incumbent government in the state, said the Chief Minister, slamming both Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for spreading a carnage of lies in a desperate attempt to mislead the people ahead of the 2022 Assembly elections.
The PPAs in question were signed by the erstwhile SAD-BJP government, and were legally binding so that his (Captain Amarinder’s) government could not rescind the same without heavy penalties on the cash-strapped state, he added. His government, said the Chief Minister, was exploring legal recourse to neutralise ill effects of the PPAs without further burdening the state’s exchequer, which the Akalis, along with their BJP allies, had milked dry to fill their own pockets, the Chief Minister noted.
In fact, he added, as per media reports, the Akalis led by the Badals had taken more than Rs 100 crore in political funds and declared a measly Rs 13 crore, putting the rest in their personal pockets.
As for AAP, the donations taken by Arvind Kejriwal’s party AAP during the 2014 elections were already under the scanner of the Enforcement Directorate as, unlike the funds donated to AICC by the private power companies, these were neither accounted for nor declared. It may be noted that media reports recently said that ED had registered a case pertaining to four cheques amounting Rs 50 lakh, allegedly given to the AAP during the 2014 Delhi assembly elections. Last year, Delhi Police had registered a case of forgery, cheating against the four companies.
While his government was busy working on solutions to address the problems `donated’ to the people of Punjab by the Akalis, the party was busy wasting time on creating law and order problems in the state amid the Covid pandemic, thus multiplying the problems of the people, said the Chief Minister. And AAP also seemed to be in total collusion, choosing not to question the controversial and anti-people decisions of the previous SAD-BJP government in Punjab, but instead contributing to the troubles of the state’s people, he added.
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The Chief Minister challenged both the parties to declare all their political funding of the past 10 years so that the people of Punjab would know the truth behind their claims and counter-claims. “Let the truth come out, and let the people decide who is or has cheating them with false allegations and accusations,” he remarked.