By SK.Vyas
CHANDIGARH, JULY 2: The Congress party government in Punjab is not in hurry to hold the election to four Municipal Corporations and 32 Municipal Councils. The elections may be held anytime after September 2017, announced Navjot Sidhu minister for local self-government here today.
Sidhu held a day-long meeting with PPCC president Sunil Jakhar, the concerned MLAs and party councilors of Amritsar, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, and Patiala to discuss the agenda of civic elections and other issues.
Later at a joint press conference, Sidhu and Jakhar said that no decision had been taken on dates of the MC elections and focus of today meeting was to list the agenda of elections. The Congress would go to polls on development agenda, the Congress leaders announced.
Sidhu who elaborated further said that Congress Government would restore the rule of law and would strengthen the democracy by holding MC elections in a transparent manner. He said that the term of present mayors belonging to SAD-BJP alliance would end on September 10. “We have decided to let the present incumbent complete their term and elections would only be held after September 10”. He however said that elections may be further delayed to enable the state government to show up development works.
Sidhu said that Congress government had made certain promises with the people of Punjab and they would like to go to seek votes after promises are fulfilled. He said that there was no dearth of funds with local self government and revenue would increase with the GST regime. He said that they were getting Rsa.1600 from its 11 percfent share in VAT. The center government has promsied to icrease the committed revnue by 14 percent. He said that a plan of development works was being chalked out and every city will gets its due.
Sidhu said that they would request the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh to give four days for each of the Municiapl Corporation to visit the four cities and present roadmap of development of urban areas. He said that in the previous government no development was done and only propogada was made to win the elections. He said that holy city of Amritsar and Heritage street buildt near golden temple was flooded the in first rain. Jakhar supplemented that the water bus brought by Badals for Harike should be used to ferry devotees to Golden Temple.
Replying to question about Chief Minsiter’s statement of taking no revenge against fastway, Sidhu said that they would present the correct picture before the CM and would definitely recover the taxes due towards cable company. He said that he called 220 Junior Engineers of local self government who gave in writing that no permission was taken to lay underground and over ground cables by fastway except for Zirakpur. He said that fastway corporation has made cable operators their slaves and how they can be spared?
Meanwhile, Jakhar said that Capt Amarinder Singh government would address the issues of traders who are confused and scared after implementation of GST. He said that GST was the baby of Congress but BJP presented it in a different model. He said that government would reach out to traders to remove their grievances on the GST.