Chandigarh : Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) President Sukhbir Badal on Tuesday demanded the registration of an FIR either against Punjab Chief Secretary Karan Avtar Singh or against the ministers on allegations of conflict of interest in the liquor ‘loot’ in the state.
He said the people of the state must know the real issue behind the head-on collision among the Chief Secretary and the ministers and Congress leaders, accusing the senior officer of being “corrupt and arrogant”.
“Instead of making a laughing stock of the high constitutional institutions of the Cabinet and of the Chief Secretary, time has come for taking a concrete legal view and penal follow up on allegations of liquor loot being exchanged freely in full public view,” Sukhbir Badal told the media here.
He alleged when the world and the country were engaged in a life and death war against coronavirus, the ministers were fighting only on lootfrom liquor.
“That is why the debate in the country is about home delivery of food and essential goods, the Punjab ministers are debating home delivery of liquor.”
Sukhbir Badal said the Congress leaders are trying to “legalise” the illegal home delivery of liquor which has been going on through the lockdown.
He said it was surprising that the state has not held a single Cabinet meeting on fulfilling the needs of the farmers, labourers, shopkeepers, employees, business, trade and industry.
“The only Cabinet meetings it had held are on liquor policy. That shows the priorities of the government,” he said.
The SAD chief said that the Congress government should stop making fools of the people by demanding the removal of the Chief Secretary.
“If the Chief Secretary is guilty, then it cannot stop merely at his removal from office. Then, the government must dare to dismiss him, and book him under the relevant provisions of law.
“But if, conversely, the ministers are angry with him because he is opposing their corruption, then the minister or ministers must be sacked immediately, booked and tried in a court of law.
“It is not a family affair that things can be sorted by someone refusing to sit with someone or the other. Only a legal course can remove confusion and deliver justice to the people and end this ugly drama,” said the former Deputy Chief Minister.
A ‘tug of war’ between Cabinet ministers and the Chief Minister’s ‘blue-eyed’ Chief Secretary over the liquor policy intensified with the straightforward Finance Minister Manpreet Badal on Monday announcing that he won’t attend a meeting where the bureaucrat was present.