Chandigarh, Feb. 25 -- Attacking Congress leaders especially Leader of the Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa for making "baseless" statements, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann on Tuesday said that instead of "day-dreaming to get the support of MLAs of ruling AAP, the Congress should focus on keeping its flock together".

Speaking on the floor of Punjab Vidhan Sabha, the Chief Minister slammed Congress leaders for "making castles in the air that few MLAs of the ruling party are in their contact and will switch soon".

He said that these "power-hungry politicians neither have contact with their own cadres nor with the masses due to which they were ousted by the people of the state". Mann said that "these leaders unabatedly issue such irrational statements but have never raised the issue of Punjab before the Union government".

The Chief Minister further said that the Congress Chief Ministers were the "most inaccessible, corrupt and inefficient leaders due to which they were rejected by the people". He said that the people of the state saw their previous Chief Minister "only on a few occasions in the state as the epicurean monarch was either busy in his personal works or was glued to his chair in the palace".

Mann said: "Rather than worrying about AAP MLAs, Congress leaders should keep their flock together as even their seven MLAs in the current Assembly cannot assemble and work together."

Listing the pro-people initiatives of the state government, the Chief Minister said that more than "51000 jobs have been given to the youth of the state purely on the basis of merit".

He said that the state government has taken several "path-breaking initiatives for the well-being of the common man".

Mann said that till now, 18 toll plazas have been closed in the state adding that with the closing of these toll plazas, Rs 63 lakh is being saved from the pocket of the common man in Punjab daily.

The Chief Minister said that the state government is making strenuous efforts to use the canal water for irrigation purposes to save the groundwater. He said that revolutionary changes are in the pipeline to implement and improve MGNREGA scheme in the larger interest of the state.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.