The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday staged protests across the state and burnt effigies of Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh over failure to scrap the power purchase agreements (PPAs). The party leaders and volunteers staged protests at all the district headquarters of the state including Patiala, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Mohali, Amritsar, Ropar and Gurdaspur. They demanded that Captain Amarinder Singh should resign from the post of Chief Minister for not living up to his promise.
In a statement issued from the party headquarters here on Tuesday, AAP senior leader and Leader of Opposition in Punjab Assembly, Harpal Singh Singh Cheema said the ruling Congress had run away from canceling the power purchase agreements with the private power companies and had misled the public by pretending to get it revoked. “By taking oath of Sri Gutka Sahib before the elections, Captain Amarinder Singh had promised that with the formation of his government, the power deals made by the Badals would be canceled and cheap power would be provided to the people of Punjab; but he has betrayed the people by reneging on his promises,” he added.
The AAP leader further questioned who would account for the thousands of crores of rupees looted from the state exchequer and the pockets of the people due to these power agreements. Cheema said if the ruling party had been even more serious on this issue, they would have accepted the private member’s bill brought by the AAP. He assured that the power deals would be canceled within the first month of the formation of the AAP government, in the same way as the Arvind Kejriwal government done in Delhi.