Chandigarh, January 29: A day before assembly elections in Punjab, State Congress President Amarinder Singh today appealed to the voters to vote carefully and cautiously to ensure that the state got a good and clean government. In a statement here, he also questioned the claims of the Akali-BJP government about the development and said, the number of BPL families had increased by seven lakh in the state. Besides, the number of unemployed people had grown to 47 lakh and the state was reeling under a cumulative debt of Rs 1.72 lakh crore. He also alleged that the Badal family and their close relatives had really made immense progress themselves by multiplying their wealth, constructing two seven star luxury hotels in Gurgaon worth Rs 4000 crores, set up an airline company Orbit Aviation, ran a fleet of transport buses in the name of Orbit Transport and Dabwali Transport, PTC news and entertainment television channels and controlled liquor vends and sand mining business. In an appeal to the people of Punjab on the eve of elections, Capt Amarinder urged them to compare the performance of the Akali-BJP government during 2007 to 2012 with that of the Congress between 2002 and 2007. He said with the addition of seven lakh BPL families during the last five years, the number of such families in the state had grown to 20 lakhs. The PPC President referred to Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal s claims about producing surplus power by the year 2010 and even now the industry was facing three days power cuts in a week. He appealed people not to get misled by his false promises once again. Referring to the law and order situation he said, no road and no street in Punjab was safe. Chains and purses were snatched every day, banks were robbed in broad day light and vehicles were snatched at gunpoint. He appealed people that if they want peace, progress and development they must vote for the Congress.
—-Agencies