PATIALA: Punjab Lok Congress (PLC) president and former chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh said here on Tuesday that for development, industrialisation, and jobs, the state needed a government that was in alliance with the Centre.
He said that all the development and Covid management associated with his term as Punjab CM had been possible because the central government could never refuse him because of his good relations with the Prime Minister and the other key members of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP is now his ally and he campaigned with its local leadership on Tuesday for Patiala mayor Sanjeev Sharma ‘Bittu’, who contests for the Patiala (Rural) assembly seat.
Accusing chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi of doing little in three months and showing off more, Captain said: "It takes months for a project to be launched, since it goes through planning, evaluation, funding, tendering, and loan stages. I know it by the experience of launching the beautification of Chhoti and Badi Nadi, besides the canal water irrigation scheme."
He claimed to have fulfilled his 2017 election promise of boosting industrialisation by investing Rs 1 lakh crore in it. Amarinder said: "We need the industry for employment generation and stopping the flight of young talent. I met my last election promise the day I resigned on September 18, since by that time, we had spent Rs 1-lakh crore. In my 4.5-year tenure as CM, I created 22 lakh jobs, thanks to my rapport with the PM."
He said: "Punjab lost Rs 43,000 crore worth of development projects when Channi failed to manage PM’s visit." Asked if his wife, Patiala MP Preneet Kaur, will support him or the Congress, he said: "When I won as Patiala Congress MP in 1980, my mother was a BJP MP, and we used to sit opposite. That’s politics."
