Chandigarh, May 20 (Inditop.com) The ruling Akali Dal in Punjab Thursday opposed the move to set up an Indian national defence university in Haryana, saying the institute was promised to Punjab.
A meeting of the Akali Dal general council Thursday said the move showed the “anti-Punjab” bias of the ruling Congress which is in power at the centre and in Haryana.
The central government this week announced that the Indian national defence university would be set up near Gurgaon.
In a resolution, the party said: “The defence university was announced for the state (Punjab) by the prime minister in 1999 on the occasion of tercentenary celebration of creation of the Khalsa. The Congress by shifting the university to Haryana has shown its anti-Punjab bias.”
The meeting was chaired by Akali Dal president and Punjab’s Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal.
The meeting also criticised the move by the central government to cancel the rail link between Amritsar and Anandpur Sahib, two of the most important religious places in Sikh religion.
It termed the cancellation of the rail link project as a big conspiracy to keep Punjab out of development loop.
The resolution said: “The centre had already announced in the railway budget to set up a new rail line between Sri Anandpur Sahib and Garhshankar for linking Sri Anandpur Sahib with Amritsar, now it is demanding Rs.450 crore out of the total project cost of Rs.900 crore.”
The resolution said that Punjab was the only state in the country from which railways was demanding more than 50 percent money to execute its project and there was not a single instance of such a demand from any other state.
