Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursday said the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has ruined the state during their decade-long regime.

Addressing a public rally at Dana Mandi in favor of party candidate for Shahkot Assembly bye-poll ,Hardev Singh Laadi, the CM Amarinder Singh said Akalis had a history of damaging the interests of Punjab, right from the time of the state’s reorganisation.

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From health to education, agriculture to industry, the SAD had destroyed every institution in Punjab and continued to work against the welfare of the state and its people even now when they were in the opposition, said Amarinder.

The CM lashed out at the Akalis for politicising religion, pointing out that it was their own education minister Daljit Cheema who had set up the committee, in 2014, for review and finalisation of the History syllabus.

Amarinder said but now SAD and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) were spreading a canard over the issue of school History books.

They (Akalis) could not even stop the imposition of Goods and Services Tax (GST) on Langar at Golden Temple nor could they get it waived off, despite their ally being in power at the Centre, the CM pointed out, adding that this showed their duplicity with regard to the Sikh Gurus and religious institutions.

The Akalis, led by the Badals, had failed to do anything for Punjab or its people during their 10-year rule, while AAP’s Sukhpal Singh Khaira was misleading people by spreading rumours instead of raising issues related to the welfare of the people, said the CM, before accompanying Congress candidate for the Shahkot by-election, Laddi, for the filing of his nomination papers.

In contrast to the Akalis, the Congress government believed in fulfilling every poll promise, as he had proved during his previous tenure, said the CM, adding that the process of implementation of all promise even this time was already in full swing, beginning with the farm loan waiver.

He reiterated his government’s commitment to the implementation of its farm loan waiver scheme, irrespective of the financial burden it had inherited from the SAD-BJP government.