With the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal claiming the Congress government had no control over state machinery, Punjab Chief Minister (CM) Amarinder Singh on Sunday said he did not need any lessons from the former deputy chief minister, who had devastated the state with his mis-governance during the 10-year SAD-BJP rule.

In the backdrop of infighting between Punjab Police top brass and reported unhappiness of Congress legislators with government functioning, Sukhbir had on Saturday said nothing like a government exists right now in the state.

In a hard-hitting reaction to the Akali president’s this statement,  Amarinder said given his (Sukhbir’s) own total failure on the governance front, the had no locus standi to comment on anyone’s governance style.

The CM said Sukhbir’s statement was totally senseless, conveying nothing more than his frustration over his party’s virtual effacement from the state’s political scene.

It was not his (Amarinder’s) control (or lack of it) that Sukhbir should worry about, but his own loss of control in SAD, and more importantly, in Punjab’s political dispensation, said the CM.

Unlike the Akalis, led by the Badals, the CM said he believed in giving a free hand to his civil and police administration to function efficiently without fear or favour so that they can deliver effectively in line with the promises and policies of his government.

The bureaucrats and police officials had been totally stifled by the Badals, he pointed out, adding that if that was the ‘control’ Sukhbir was referring to, then he was happy and proud not to be exercising the same.

Had he not given a free hand to the police, the gang wars, the targeted killings and the desecrations that had destroyed the state’s law and order under the Akali regime would still have been continuing, the CM pointed out.

The bureaucracy was also now functioning more transparently than it was every allowed to do during the decade-long SAD-BJP rule, said Amarinder, pointing to the successful implementation of various government schemes by the bureaucrats.