Chandigarh, Feb 9 (IANS) The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Wednesday described AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal a "snake in the grass let loose in Punjab by corporate and the anti-Sikh lobbies".
Talking to the media here, Harcharan Bains, Principal Adviser to SAD President Sukhbir Singh Badal, asked farm organisations and their leaders, including Joginder Singh Ugrahan and Balbir Singh Rajewal, to wake up to the shocking reality that although the farmers movement forced Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government to revoke the three "black" farm laws, the most dangerous of these laws is still in force in Delhi with Kejriwal refusing to annul it in the state assembly.
He said, "It is shocking that while the entire country has rejected these laws, Kejriwal typically quietly keeps them in force. One can well imagine what his true anti-farmer intent and agenda in Punjab is."
Bains said Kejriwal "has also filed a case against Punjab farmers and sought a fine of Rs 1 crore per case of stubble warning even when the Supreme Court itself refused to blame the Delhi pollution on the farmers of Punjab and even delivered a rebuff to the Delhi Chief Minister".
The Akali Dal spokesman said that while the AAP leader is promising to abolish private bus operators and ending the mafia raj in liquor trade, the fact is that he has "virtually killed" the DTC in his own state.
"As for stopping liquor trade from passing into the hands of the mafia through public distribution and sale by the government-run liquor shops, Kejriwal has handed over the entire liquor trade to the liquor mafia patronised by big business houses," Bains added.
In a major relief to green activists, the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday ordered a stay on the axing of 700 fully grown trees for the proposed construction of a flyover.
The Super 30 fame mathematician Anand Kumar has been invited to speak at the prestigious Cambridge Union, world’s oldest debating and free speech society at the University of Cambridge, England.
An intelligence wing team of Punjab Police led by AIG Gurmeet Chauhan and SP Harvinder Virk had been pursuing the case with the Centre and the Hong Kong court for the past three years.
The National Commission for Scheduled Castes and its Punjab counterpart will probe the death of a Dalit man, who was allegedly thrashed and forced to drink urine in a village in Sangrur district of Punjab.
For those whose annual income is less than Rs 3 lakh, the subsidy has been increased from Rs 40,000 to Rs 60,000. For those with annual income of more than Rs 3 lakh, the subsidy has been increased from Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000.
