People need budget of Punjabis, not of Prashant Kishore: Harpal Cheema
Chandigarh, March 8, 2021:
Slamming Captain Amarinder Singh on the budget presented by his government on Monday, senior leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Leader of Opposition (LoP) Harpal Singh Cheema said that the people of the state need a budget of Punjabis and not of Prashant Kishore's. He said that the budget was not prepared by the Finance Minister Manpreet Badal but by Captain's newly appointed principal adviser, Prashant Kishore.
Addressing the media during a press conference, Cheema said that Punjab's budget was earlier to be presented in the house on March 5, but it was presented on March 8. He said that Prashant Kishore was behind moving the budget of Punjab forward. Questioning the capability of Captain Amarinder Singh-led government, Cheema said, "Has the Captain government become so inefficient that it is getting a Bihari from outside and getting the budget made," adding that, "Can Prashant Kishore, who has come from outside and spent three days in Punjab, understand the pain of the people?"
Taking a further dig, Cheema said that Prashant Kishore's budget was nothing but a bag of lies just like his manifesto of 2017. "All the schemes that were announced would be implemented from July, effectively making the budget a three-month budget," he added. The LoP said that the government had decreased the allocations made for farm loan waiver. He said that the Captain government has allotted just Rs 1,400 crore for farm loan waiver and has not allotted a single penny for the waiver of Dalit farm loans. Cheema said that the Captain government had produced Rs 84,000 crore worth of debt to fulfill the false promises. "These people are dragging the state more and more into the abyss of debt," he added.
Cheema said that Captain could not run this state and had betrayed Punjab and its people by giving the responsibility of running Punjab's state in the hands of a 'Bihari.'