SAD-BJP to seek independent probe into liquor, seed 'scams'

The Shiromani Akali Dal and the BJP on Thursday decided to seek an independent investigation into the alleged liquor and seed scams in Punjab. At a meeting of their coordination committee, both parties decided to submit a memorandum in this regard to Punjab Governor V P Singh Badnore. The meeting was jointly presided over by Shiromani Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal and Punjab BJP president Ashwani Sharma. During the meeting, leaders from both parties slammed the Congress-led government for the alleged liquor and seed scams, a release said.

Both parties held that the government had tried to “cover up” the Rs 5,600-crore liquor “scam”. “The issue of the loot of the state treasury remains. It is of utmost important to order an independent inquiry into the scam to ascertain how the spoils were shared between different Congress leaders,” the leaders noted in the meeting. The Akalis had earlier alleged that the liquor mafia in league with some Congress leaders and legislators had caused a loss of Rs 5,600 crore to the exchequer by allowing liquor from distilleries without payment of excise duty.

The leaders of both parties also took a note of the inter-state ramifications of the alleged Rs 4,000 crore seed scam under which farmers had been “duped” through the supply of “spurious seeds” of PR-128 and PR-129 paddy varieties. It said though few arrests had been made belatedly after an uproar by farmers, the “political patronage” given to the “scamsters” could be unmasked only by a central probe. Badal and Sharma noted that the government was not only “discriminating” against farmers, but also “mistreating” them.

They demanded that pending dues of Rs 680 crore be released to sugarcane farmers immediately. The leaders also asked the Congress led government to tell why it had not done any disbursal from the Rs 6,000 crore accumulated under the disaster management fund. They said the government should come out with an audit report of the money spent under this head in the past three years and explain why the funds had been “misappropriated”. A huge quantity of ration sent by the Centre for 1.4 crore people of the state has also been “misappropriated” by Congressman, they alleged.