Chandigarh, January 21 – The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab has cornered the Congress high command on the issue of expensive electricity in the state, saying that now terminating of the anti-people PPAs inked between the previous Badal government and the private power players was a testing time not only for Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and Punjab Congress President Sunil Jakhar but also for the Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi, as the open ‘loot’ of the people of Punjab by the power mafia was no longer a secret for anybody, including the Gandhi family.
After the Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s recent meeting with the state leadership in Delhi, the Congress high command seemed to have been rattled by the ongoing ‘Bijli andolan’ spearheaded by the state unit of AAP and, of course, the power being made available at a cheaper rate by the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to the people in the capital city Delhi.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, party MLAs Kultar Singh Sandhwan, Bibi Sarabjit Kaur Manonke, Rupinder Kaur Ruby, Meet Hayer and Jai Kishan Singh Rouri said that the media reactions of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in the press over the expensive electricity was in the knowledge of the Congress high command, saying that the Congress government in Punjab did nothing to abrogate the Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) with private power companies, then it would be presumed that the lion’s share of the ‘booty’ from power mafia was being pocketed by the Congress high command.
The AAP leaders said that the Congress and Captain Amarinder Singh should take a cue from Kejriwal-led Delhi government and provide electricity to the people of Punjab at cheaper rate by cracking a whip on the power companies. They said that the Delhi government purchased electricity from private thermal plants to provide it at cheaper rate to the consumers there while the state of Punjab had, besides own natural resources, government thermal plants at Ropar, Lehra Mohabbat, et al.
