Mansa: Gandhian Anna Hazare`s anti-graft
campaign has touched people`s chord and exposed "weak-kneed"
policies of the UPA government to combat corruption, Punjab
Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal said today.
The anti-corruption campaign launched by the social
activist had touched the chord of 1.2 billion plus people of
the country, he told reporters here.
The outcry against graft showed the policies pursued by
the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre to fight the
menace were weak-kneed, Junior Badal said.
"The Central government will have to come out with a
foolproof institutionalised arrangement against corruption,"
he said.
The Deputy Chief Minister was speaking after laying
foundation stones of the Punjab Institute of Technology, a
regional campus of the Punjab Technical University, and a
canncer-cum-multi-speciality medical institute.
Hazare today called off his 98-hour hunger strike in
New Delhi after the Union Government came out with a gazette
notification constituting a Joint Committee of ministers and
civil society activists to draft an effective Lok Pal bill.
Sukhbir, president of the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal,
accused the UPA government of meting out step-motherly
treatment to Punjab.
"Refusal to increase storage capacity of foodgrains in
Punjab, denial of more bogies to transport old stock of wheat
and rice from the state and rejection of a special package for
rejuvenating 125-year-old canal system show anti-Punjab bias
of the government," he said.
Sukhbir also lashed out at his cousin and former state
Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal.
"The rejection of restructuring of Punjab?s debt by the
Centre has exposed the false propaganda of Manpreet Badal that
the Union government is for waiving debt of the state," he
said.
PTI
