Deadline approaches, ticket seekers throng PPCC office
Arrive with details of 2 voters from each booth in constituency
Rajmeet Singh
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, August 12
With barely three days left to apply for the Congress ticket, prospective candidates were seen carrying bundles of papers at the PPCC office here today.
For the first time, the state Congress has made it mandatory for every applicant to furnish the details of two voters from each booth in their respective constituency, along with copies of voter ID cards.
The new format has led to resentment among a section of the MLAs. While PPCC president Capt Amarinder Singh has said that all those desirous of contesting the elections, including the MLAs, should fill the forms and get these attested from a notary, the legislators say that there should have been clarity on the ticket allotment by now.
Some of the aspiring candidates said it was a tedious and expensive process to collect the documents.
The scrutiny of the applications will begin after the August 15 deadline expires. Capt said the last date would not be extended.
Application fee charged
Contrary to Amarinder's announcement on waiving the application fee of Rs 10,000 (general category candidates) and Rs 5,000 (reserved), the staff in the PPCC office was on Friday seen taking the fee. Some of the applicants alleged that no receipts were issued. A PPCC spokesman clarified that the money would be refunded to the aspirants who would not get the ticket.
Capt applies for Patiala (city) ticket
Patiala: Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee chief Amarinder Singh on Friday officially applied for the Patiala (city) seat as a probable Congress candidate for the forthcoming Assembly elections. The Congress has asked ticket aspirants to send information in a specified form. Before becoming an MP from Amritsar, Amarinder was an MLA from Patiala (city). At present, his wife Preneet Kaur is an MLA from the same seat after she won the bypoll. Amarinder’s staff submitted his form at the PCC office in Chandigarh today. Amarinder said he had applied for the Patiala (city) ticket as per the procedure set by the party. He said he would stick to his stand of “one party, one ticket”. This was a clear indication that his wife Preneet Kaur would not contest the forthcoming elections. “She will contest the parliamentary elections later, subject to the party approval,” he said. “Patiala is my home turf and there was no doubt in my mind while applying for the seat,” he added.
Cong promises settlement of farmers’ loans
Jalandhar: Amarinder Singh on Friday promised one-time settlement of farmers’ loans after the Congress forms the government in the state. Addressing the “Halke Vich Captain” programme at Nawanshahr, he said the Congress government would bring in a law to ensure that the properties of debt-ridden farmers were not auctioned. Capt Amarinder took a dig at Deputy CM Sukhbir Badal and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal for blaming others for their own failures. “Like Kejriwal blames Prime Minister Narendra Modi for all his failures, Sukhbir has put blame on the ISI for the breakdown of law and order in Punjab,” he said. On the party’s manifesto, he said the party’s manifesto would be elaborate and comprehensive concerning all issues related to Punjab. Capt Amarinder said during his previous regime his government had waived loans of all farmers which they had taken from cooperative banks. He also visited the Bishop’s House in Jalandhar.ATTACK ON RSS LEADER
CM, deputy not on same page over ISI hand
Deepkamal Kaur
Tribune News Service
Adampur, August 12
Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Deputy CM Sukhbir Badal today made contradictory statements on the issue of ISI hand in recent incidents of law and order in the state.
Speaking at a Sangat Darshan programme at Kapoor village in the Adampur constituency, the CM said, “There is no direct evidence about the involvement of the ISI or any other foreign agency in any of the cases, including the attack on RSS leader Brig Jagdish Gagneja (retd) and various sacrilege incidents.”
Contrary to this, the Deputy CM, while interacting with the media at the opening of a Sewa Kendra at Begowal in Kapurthala this afternoon, said the recent arrest of terrorists at Hoshiarpur and Amritsar was indicative of the active role being played by the ISI in various incidents taking place in the state.
Asked how can that be said when the police were still clueless in the Gagneja case, he said, “Gal eh hai ke, shak kita ja sakda (the whole issue is derived from a suspicion of this sort).” Having said so, he tried to duck further queries on the issue saying, “Till the time an inquiry is on, we should refrain from making any categorical statement publicly.”
Incidents of sacrilege
Asked if he had managed to lay hands on any direct evidence as regards sacrilege incidents, Badal replied, “We have probed 13 out of 14 sacrilege incidents. However, there is no direct evidence establishing a foreign link in these cases. Some officers are still working specifically on solving the Bargari case only.”
AAP’s ‘foreign funding’
In contradiction to statements by Sukhbir, Harsimrat Badal and Bikram Majithia as regards foreign funding to AAP, the CM said, “Jehri gal da mainu pata hi nhi mein ki kahan? (How can I comment on a matter when I am not aware of it?)”.
Gagneja suffers from high fever
Ludhiana: Senior RSS leader Brig Jagdish Chander Gagneja (retd), who is recuperating at Hero DMCH Heart Institute, is suffering from high fever, but his condition is said to be stable. One of the doctors said due to gut-perforation, fever is generally expected. Senior BJP leader and former Himachal CM Shanta Kumar visited the leader today. Kumar said a few “forces” wanted to disturb peace in the state. Such disturbing elements should be booked and punished as per law at the earliest. Meanwhile Dr GS Wander, chief cardiologist and Director of the Hero-DMC Heart Institute, said there was no deterioration in the leader’s condition. He said he was put off ventilator for an hour today. Cabinet Minister Bhagat Chunni Lal also visited the hospital today. TNS
Panchayats boycott Dy CM’s sangat darshan
Archit Watts
Tribune News Service
Gidderbaha, August 12
The Akali panchayats of Dhulkot, Buttar Shrinh and Harike Kalan villages yesterday boycotted Deputy CM Sukhbir Badal’s sangat darshan in protest against Gidderbaha constituency incharge Hardeep Singh Dimpy Dhillon.
Around 25 village panchayats were invited to the programme.
Jaswinder Singh, whose wife is the sarpanch of Harike Kalan village, said, “We are staunch Akalis, but we boycotted the programme to lodge a protest against Dhillon. He had not even informed us about the programme. A majority of those present at the programme belonged to AAP.”
Airing their grievances against Dimpy, Dhulkot and Buttar Shrinh panchayats have already approached the high court, seeking direct allocation of funds.
However, Sukhbir yesterday projected Dimpy as the party candidate for the elections. “Dimpy’s family has done a lot for us. During Beant Singh’s rule, he helped us a lot by providing buses. He is just like my brother,” Sukhbir had said.
If Badal is right, then this Oxford scholar is not
Nirmal Sandhu
Politicians do not listen to economists in general and in Punjab where economic reforms have remained on the periphery, none in the political class is expected to accept advice even if it comes free from an Oxford University professor specialising on reforms, macroeconomics and political economy with two books on India to his credit already.
This is the second book I recommend to chief ministers. Since reading is not an activity that can be easily taken up, they can ask someone to brief them on the book’s main ideas, if ever they happen to take interest in their own state’s progress and their own people’s welfare; the first book was Nandan Nilekani’s Rebooting India, which explains how high-tech public institutions can deliver citizen-friendly, low-cost solutions to India’s challenges.
Here are some economic ideas which, even if unacceptable to vote-seeking politicians, give an idea to ordinary people what experts think should be done to better their lot. Vijay Joshi is not alone in offering these ideas; he however reinforces their validity with scholarly research. Some are quite simple; even Tota Singh can understand them. It should not be difficult to accept his suggestion that land transfers should be made easy and litigation-free through computerisation of all rural and urban land records. The writer supports the labour law changes that Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat have made to facilitate an easy hiring and firing of industrial workers.
Infrastructure is another key priority of the writer but within this it is the electricity sector that he turns to in detail. He opposes free power to any section of society since it bankrupts electricity discoms and advocates cost-reflective prices, privatisation, competition and improved regulation to rid the power sector of its present mess. Mispricing is also self-evident in the railways and water. Power and water subsidies, he argues, favour the better-off: 85 per cent of water subsidy is given for private taps, where as 60 per cent poor households get water from public taps.
Here is Vijay Joshi’s forceful plea on subsidies, which politicians can benefit from, or ignore at their own peril: ‘Elimination of all dysfunctional subsidies deserves to be a prime component of an intelligent reform agenda. These subsidies distort efficient resource allocation, give rise to massive leakages to intermediaries and black-market operators, and are regressive in the bargain (i.e. they benefit the relatively rich more than the poor).’
Socialist economists and politicians often accuse pro-market, anti-subsidy proponents of being anti-poor. Vijay Joshi suggests social protection which is fiscally affordable, as cost effective as possible and actually benefits the poor. He writes, ‘Rapid growth is pointless unless it is inclusive and widely shared. Social protection schemes that provide a minimum income to citizens, regardless of earning capacity, are institutions that all social democracies should aspire to have’.
Nearly half of the country’s workforce and two-thirds of the country’s poor depend on agriculture, which is in perpetual crisis. Joshi has a list of solutions and the boldest is: ‘… dismantle the network of state controls on (the) movement, storage, marketing and processing of produce, activities in which (the) private sector has a comparative advantage’.
He makes a suggestion which both the BJP and the ‘pro-farmer’ Akali Dal rejected when first proposed by the UPA: FDI in multi-brand retail. The writer favours the entry of multinational supermarkets to strengthen India’s supply chain since a third of fruits and vegetables goes waste. He rejects the way trade is done in mandis, saying ‘trade takes place, in practice, through licensed intermediaries who have captured the APMCs in cahoots with local politicians’.
By keeping arhtiyas in business, not dismantling the inefficient food procurement, storage and transport chain, disallowing foreign supermarkets, levying hefty taxes on farmers’ produce and then distributing small amounts at ‘sangat darshan’ gatherings for political benefit, bankrupting the power system with free supply and not paying for it in time, wasting money on freebies and memorials, which could have been better spent on improving healthcare and rural education; and by putting the Punjab government and its every board and corporation under huge debt and selling off or mortgaging government properties in the pursuit of politics of appeasement, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has not allowed Punjab to recover from the depths it has plumbed under his leadership.
Badal and his team of economic advisers have done in Punjab almost everything that this Oxford Professor disapproves of. Each can form a judgement based on the situation Punjab is in. Either Vijay Joshi does not know his economics despite grabbing a top post at Oxford, or he does not realise how economics and governance can be pursued at the grassroots level by the likes of Badal. And Badal is not alone in ruining his state.
Capt asks government how Rs600 cr was spent?
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, August 12
The Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president, Capt Amarinder Singh, asked the state government to explain as to how Rs 600 crore taken as loan from Bank of Japan for laying out the drainage system in the holy city was spent.
While reacting to flooding of the whole city due to heavy rains yesterday, the Amritsar MP in a statement here said the state government owed an explanation to the people as what it did with money, which had to be paid back to the bank.
The PCC president said the Congress government would inquire and find out where the money was siphoned off. He said had the money taken as loan been utilised properly, Amritsar would not have faced the problem of waterlogging like on Thursday.
Captain said if this was happening in holy city, visited by thousands of people from across the world every day, one could well imagine the plight of other places.
SACKED BY THE HIGH COURT: 18 IMMEDIATELY, THE REST FACE SAME FATE
As such, appointment of 21 CPSes in Punjab was challenged since that was the number at the time of the petition being filed. The immediate effect of Friday’s judgment, however, is on the 18 (of those 21) who still hold the post. As for the other three, Sohan Singh Thandal has since been made a minister, Inderbir Singh Bolaria has been dropped as CPS, and Amarjit Singh Sahi has passed away. Of these 18, three are from the BJP and 15 from the SAD. Here are their names and the main departments they currently held as CPS (according to the Punjab govt website).
AAP has compulsions to keep mum on CPS issue
KEJRIWAL GOVERNMENT HAD ON MARCH 14 LAST YEAR APPOINTED 21 PARLIAMENTARY SECYS; THE MOVE WAS CHALLENGED IN THE HC
From page 01 CHANDIGARH: As the Arvind Kejriwal government in Delhi is itself in a spot over the appointment of (chief) parliamentary secretaries, the otherwise-combative Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is expected to maintain a stoic silence over the high court judgment.
The Delhi government had on March 14 last year appointed 21 parliamentary secretaries for the “smooth functioning of the government”. However, unlike Punjab, Delhi’s parliamentary secretaries are not eligible for any remuneration or perks from the government. They were only eligible to use government transport for official purposes and office space in the minister’s office.
To prevent their appointment becoming invalid, in June, the Delhi assembly passed an amendment to the ‘Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of the Disqualification) Act, 1997’ to insulate CPSes from getting disqualified because of their holding an office of profit. The Bill was forwarded by lieutenant governor of Delhi to the Centre, which in turn sent it to the President with its comments. The President refused to give his assent. The issue was referred to the election commission and is with it since. The appointment of CPSes has also been challenged in the Delhi High Court.Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had argued that the post didn’t fall under the ‘office of profit’ category as parliamentary secretaries were not receiving any financial benefit.
On June 30, AAP’s Punjab leaders had demanded “immediate disqualification” of the 24 CPSes appointed by the Punjab government. The party’s legal cell head Himmat Singh Shergill, made a formal complaint to the state chief electoral officer VK Singh about the “unconstitutional appointment” of 24 CPSes by the government.
CAPT WANTS EVIDENCE OF RADICALS FUNDING AAP
SBS NAGAR: Punjab Congress chief Capt Amarinder Singh on Friday asked deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal to share evidence on the AAP allegedly getting funds from radical Sikh organisations.
On the sidelines of a programme here, the former CM said Sukhbir is making an attempt to put the blame for the complete breakdown of law and order in Punjab on Pakistan’s ISI. Taking a dig at AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal as well, he said both the Delhi CM and Sukhbir are trying to blame others for their own failures.
Badals weakening drug cases to save Majithia, says AAP
CHANDIGARH: A day after a Jalandhar court acquitted former deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Jagdish Bhola and four others in a drug trafficking case, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday accused Badals of putting pressure on Punjab Police for weakening the case.In a press statement here, AAP MP Bhagwant Mann demanded an impartial probe by a sitting high court judge into the Bhola drug racket, while alleging if the investigation remains with the state police, the accused – Bhola, businessman Jagjit Singh Chahal and former Akali leader Maninder Singh Aulakh -- will be acquitted in all remaining cases as well.
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