After being restricted to bed for nearly three weeks on account of injury, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Monday lashed out at the Congress, saying the state became bankrupt during its rule. “Whenever we had Congress government in the state or at the Centre, it never cared about Punjab or its people and rarely performed its duties towards the people,” he said. “Punjab was totally destroyed when the Congress was in power.”
“The state was in a complete mess when we took over some four-and-a-half years back and the economy was in shambles. There was no development to talk about and the state was burdened by the money it had used to fight militancy,” he said, adding the present SAD-BJP government had got this amount waived off by the Centre. “Emphasising that Centre-state relations should be cordial and healthy for the development of the states,” Badal said, he enjoyed extremely friendly relations with the Vajpayee government at the Centre.
“It is the best example of a perfect relationship that I can give, which is why one can see that Punjab has made tremendous progress in a short span of time with all possible help coming from the Centre at every step,” Badal said.
Badal was addressing a meeting of party workers from Ropar, the first in a series of meetings of district level party workers, at his residence in Chandigarh. Bureau Report