Industry manifesto Arvind Kejriwal's another gimmick to fool people: Captain Amarinder Singh

LUDHIANA: Punjab Congress president Captain Amarinder Singh has dismissed Arvind Kejriwal’s promises to the industry as another theatrical gimmick, lacking in substance and silent on several key issues. Kejriwal has simply picked up some of the promises already made by the Punjab Congress, while ignoring certain vital issues, said Captain Amarinder.
“From reduction in power tariff to VAT reduction and simplification, revival of sick units, new industrial township in Ropar and end to mafia raj, our party has already promised relief to trade and industry.What Kejriwal has done is simply picked up these points and packaged them in his industry manifesto for Punjab,” said Captain Amarinder, adding that even the promise to end the power purchase agreements with private players is an old commitment of the Congress.
Pointing out that one needs intelligence to even copy well, Captain Amarinder said that Kejriwal had, in his hurry to ape the Congress, forgotten to mention some key issues in his manifesto. One such issue relates to the small-scale industrial units that the Badal government has decided to shift out, on which the AAP manifesto is completely silent.
Captain Amarinder also pointed out that the Congress had already promised to bring down the industrial power tariff to a competitive rate. If the state can sell power to the national grid at just Rs 3.40 per unit, why can’t it provide the same to the industries, he asked, asserting his commitment to lower the power tariff to make the industries more competitive.
The announcement by AAP on the development of an industrial hub in Ropar is another promise that is a straight lift from the Congress promise of developing the Kandi Belt Area (Rupnagar-Gurdaspur) as an industrial belt on priority basis, said Amarinder, adding that virtually each of the 21 promises contained in the AAP manifesto could be linked to some or the other promise of the Punjab Congress to the industry.
The people of Punjab are not going to be fooled by such blatantly farcical tactics on the part of Kejriwal & Co., said Captain Amarinder, adding that the voters were mature enough to know whom to trust.