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Ruling Congress in Punjab battles over Daroo, not Dawa

पंजाब मंत्रिमंडल की मीटिंग की तिथि ...

The Covid-19 crisis is throwing up unprecedented situations.
However, what Punjab is witnessing is something more than that.
The situation in Punjab can be termed as uniquely unprecedented.
The Congress, the ruling party in Punjab, has been rocked by Daroo while the party leaders in the most stable government should have been arranging for Dawa to confront the Coronavirus crisis.
Punjab’s health infrastructure is  one of the poorest amongst the states in the country.
It could be the reason that Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh appreciably opted for imposition of curfew in the very beginning itself.
Not that the situation has been so rotten all along. A major push had been given to the creation of health facilities but  whatever infrastructure was developed became victim of criminal indifference over time. The situation started worsening with the developmental discourse shifting away from health infrastructure in the public sector to facilitation of investment in the private sector, an anti-people move rooted in market forces. This happened everywhere in India but the states can’t be absolved of the responsibility under this argument.
The situation got degenerated to the extent that the state authorities failed even to avail of the offer from US based alumni of government medical college at Patiala to contribute to the infrastructure. It is a matter of record. But that is now part of history.
The main concern of the ruling party leaders that has come up during the last about a week relates to the excise policy that governs the liquor sale. Punjab has been continuously losing in excise revenue ever since the change of government in 2017. The minister in charge of excise and taxation is Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh himself.
Punjabis are known for being Daroo lovers but the excise revenue here amongst the lowest in the country. This is not because of consumption going down. It is because of leakage and that too a massive one.
One can’t recall that the Punjab ministers in any of the recent cabinet meetings had focused so keenly on the up-gradation of health infrastructure to deal with the continuing crisis. It is the states like Kerala that are being talked about for the efficient and better health infrastructure in the public sector.
The problem, it seems, is deeper.
The target of the ire of the ministers was Chief Secretary Karan Avtar Singh at a meeting of the cabinet sub-committee that was to finalise the excise policy. The chief secretary also happens to be in charge of excise and taxation.
His mistake was that he introduced the proposed policy favouring the liquor contractors as fait accompli. It emerged later a member of his immediate family is in liquor business.  He has been divested of excise and taxation. However, the ministers are demanding his sack as chief secretary but Capt Amarinder Singh has so far resisted the pressure.
As the minister-in-charge was Capt Amarinder Singh himself, the proposals might have been discussed with him or at the highest level in the all-powerful Chief Minister’s Office headed by a handpicked retired bureaucrat before being put up in the cabinet sub-committee meeting. Karan Avtar Singh could have only been a messenger.
The demand for thorough probe in liquor business in the state is now being pressed not by only a section of the ministers and the MLAs but also the state party chief Sunil Jakhar.
One can make out as to who is the target.
The minister who was the first to question the proposals was Manpreet Singh Badal who holds finance. He has no control over resource mobilisation that is with the Chief Minister.
This is for the first time  that the anger has exploded at this level. None had come out in support of cricketer-turned politician Navjot Singh Sidhu when he raised such issues as a minister earlier.
The Congress is now getting line up for the power struggle. The fire-fighting operation is on.
But the basic issue is the priority of the ruling Congress in the state to Daroo over Dawa.
The Congress that is in the process of withering away in the country refuses to learn any lesson.

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