\n
\n
Chandigarh, Nov 1 (PTI) Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu on Monday hit out at politicians who offer “lollipops” just ahead of polls, in an apparent attack on his own party-led government in the state, and urged people to vote only on the agenda of Punjab’s welfare.<\/p>\n
His remarks came on a day when Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi announced slashing of the power tariff by Rs 3 per unit for the domestic sector and increasing the dearness allowance for government employees.<\/p>\n
Addressing a gathering of the Hindu Mahasabha here, Sidhu wondered if anybody would talk about the welfare of the state.<\/p>\n
“They (politicians) offer lollipops…this is free, that is free, which happened in the last two months,” he said.<\/p>\n
The cricketer-turned-politician asked people to question those politicians as regards how would they fulfil such promises.<\/p>\n
Stressing on a roadmap for the revival and welfare of the state, he asked people to cast their votes on the agenda of development, not for “lollipops”.<\/p>\n
“There should be a question in your mind whether the intention is only government formation or coming to power after speaking lies, making 500 promises or the welfare of the state,” Sidhu said.<\/p>\n
He said politics has become a profession and it is no longer a mission.<\/p>\n
“It is my objective to bring back people’s trust, which has faded away from a politician,” the Congress leader said while pointing out that parents do not want their children to become politicians these days.<\/p>\n
He said he would die but never sell Punjab’s interests.<\/p>\n
Sidhu said Punjab had an outstanding debt of Rs 5 lakh crore and blamed the governments that ruled the state over the last 25-30 years for this.<\/p>\n
Municipal committees and government rest houses were mortgaged, he said, adding that this debt is to be paid by the people of the state.<\/p>\n
“Wherever there is talk of compromise, Sidhu throws away the post so that your trust is not broken. For me, it is a ‘dharm yudh’ (battle of principles) and I cannot be defeated in this ‘dharm yudh’, I know this,” he said.<\/p>\n
The Congress leader also took on those who say the state’s coffers are filled.<\/p>\n
“If that is the situation, then give Rs 50,000 as salary to the ETT (Elementary Teacher Training) teachers and give it (the money) to the contractual teachers,” he said.<\/p>\n
\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chandigarh, Nov 1 (PTI) Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu on Monday hit out at politicians who offer “lollipops” just ahead of polls, in an apparent attack on his own party-led government in the state, and urged people to vote only on the agenda of Punjab’s welfare. His remarks came on a day when Chief […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-175718","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175718\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}