Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Monday said factionalism in the Punjab Congress was costing the people dear with all senior Congressmen having formed their own groups making Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi totally ineffective.

Speaking to reporters after addressing a number of programmes at Gurdaspur, the SAD chief said the Congress party was now divided into groups including the Sukhjinder Randhawa group, Tript Rajinder Bajwa group, Sunil Jakhar group, and the Charanjit Channi group.

“On top of these, you have Pradesh Congress president Navjot Sidhu whom no one recognises as the boss. In such a situation there can be no governance and this is why the chief minister is limited to making announcements only with not a single rupee being released to give any relief to the people,” he said. Stating that the Punjab Congress and its CM could not fool people for long, Badal said, “The CM has made promises worth Rs 15,000 Crore in a little over one month but no money has been allocated to fulfill them”.

The SAD leader said as much as Rs 8,000 Crore was due to the PSPCL alone on account of pending agriculture supply subsidy of Rs 4,500 Crore and pending dues of Rs 2,500 Crore from government departments. He said besides waiving off pending water bills of urban and rural areas would entail a cost of Rs 1,868 Crore and Rs 440 Crore burden would be borne by the state for reducing water charges to Rs 50 per connection.

“As much as Rs 1505 Crore is needed to waive off bills of people with a load of less than two-kilo watt besides a few thousand crore rupees on other promises including increasing subsidy for SC and BC power consumers,” the SAD chief said. He said the government also needed Rs 2,400 Crore to clear the SC scholarship scheme backlog and Rs 550 Crore were to be paid to the landless labourers.

Badal said besides these farmers who had suffered losses due to the attack of pink bollworm as well as due to incessant rains in September and again a few days back were still waiting for crop damage awards. “The chief minister has even claimed credit for releasing money to farmers whose crops were destroyed due to pink bollworm but not a single farmer has been paid any compensation,” he said.