Punjab BJP president Sunil Jakhar on Monday said the Aam Aadmi Party government’s four years in power had left the state burdened with debt, rising gangsterism and an unchecked drug menace, calling it the worst government in Punjab’s history.Reacting to the AAP government completing four years in office, Jakhar said Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann could not escape accountability by describing gangsterism as an international problem.”Every Punjabi knows the ground reality. People are living in fear, receiving extortion calls, while the government claims everything is under control,” he said, adding that the police’s reported move to constitute village night vigil committees itself exposed the hollowness of the government’s anti-drug claims.On the financial front, Jakhar alleged that Mann and his “super chief minister” had gone silent on their election promise of generating Rs 20,000 crore from mining. He alleged illegal mining was rampant and questioned where the revenue was going, asking whether the party that once championed the fight against corruption was now sustaining itself on such money.Jakhar also warned that free and subsidised electricity was pushing the Punjab State Power Corporation toward bankruptcy, and that eventual privatisation would impose an unbearable burden on consumers. Dismissing the AAP government’s much-publicised education revolution, Jakhar said changing the colour of school walls did not amount to reform.He pointed out that AAP leaders and MLAs continued to send their own children to private schools. “If their own legislators don’t believe in this model, how can the public?” he asked. On corruption, Jakhar alleged that the same companies accused of colluding with Congress leaders to fleece the Punjab government of crores in a bus body fabrication scam during the previous dispensation were again being awarded contracts by the AAP government.He further said government employees were yet to receive their dearness allowance and that the state had no credible agricultural policy, with the Chief Minister deflecting the issue to the Centre despite agriculture being a state subject. “This government is surviving on advertisements. The reality is altogether different,” Jakhar said.


