Resign or wind up all businesses: Congress to Punjab CM Prakash Singh Badal

CHANDIGARH: Citing conflict of interest, Congress leader Amarinder Singh today said Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal should either resign or shut down his transport and other businesses, days after death of a girl after being shoved off from a bus owned by the ruling family.

The Congress' Deputy Leader in Lok Sabha alleged that number of Badal family-owned buses has increased from 40 to 250 since they came to power and they threatened into submission all other transporters as well as Punjab Roadways.

"All these years, in a clear case of conflict of interest, you have brutally abused your position and power and multiplied your fleet of buses from 40 to 250 by threatening and bullying not only other private transporters, but also the PRTC (Pepsu Road Transport Corporation) and Punjab Roadways into submission.

"It has eventually led to everybody except you suffering huge losses while you are making huge profits," he told Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal in a statement issued here.

The Congress leader claimed that when he became chief minister of Punjab in 2002, he was among the Board of Directors of some companies like Ranbaxy, DLF Industrial Cables and Mount Shivalik Breweries.

Singh said he resigned from all the companies after seeking a legal opinion from the Punjab Advocate General, who told him that this amounted to "conflict of interest" since all these companies were based in and operating from Punjab.

The former Chief Minister alleged that while the Badals have grabbed about 250 route permits, most of these forcibly, they were actually plying about 500 buses on all the profit making routes.

"No government official or the police can dare to stop these buses as your conductors and drivers misbehave with officials and get away with it," he told Badal while adding, "the Moga incident was the outcome of the same immunity from law you have provided to your erring and bullying drivers and conductors."

He said, abusing their power, the Orbit Aviations Ltd has grabbed all the profit making routes from other transporters by threatening and bullying them physically and slapping false cases if anybody refused and left out the loss making routes for them and the PRTC and Punjab Roadways.

"Otherwise why the PRTC and Punjab Roadways and other transporters are making losses while Badals' fleet is multiplying?" he asked.