A day after Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal blamed Punjab Chief Minister (CM) for the state’s 13th rank on the Good Governance Index (GGI), Amarinder Singh on Sunday said GGI report was actually a reflection of the poor governance under the erstwhile SAD-BJP regime.

The CM said the Akali president is deceiving the people with his blatant misinformation on the GGI report which was based on the evaluation of 18 States on the GGI by the Union government’s department of administrative reforms and public grievances and Centre for Good Governance.

Amarinder said SAD, in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had misruled for a decade, to pull it down on every index of progress.

Referring to the GGI report released by the Union government on 25 December, Amarinder pointed out that the data used to prepare the index dated back to financial year 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17, when Punjab was under the regime of the Akalis and the BJP.

Amarinder further pointed out that anyone involved in serious and responsible governance would know that indices of progress are developed over a time and any development process translates into visible outcomes only in subsequent reports.

“But Sukhbir would not know that, considering that he never knew the meaning of responsible and good governance,” Amarinder quipped.

The CM said the report was based on the data from 2014-15. The ease of doing business was also observed in 2017 when transformations of the sector under the newly elected government were still in process.

In his tearing haste to condemn the current government, Sukhbir had clearly not bothered to check out even the basic facts before coming out with his statement, said Amarinder, adding that the former deputy chief minister had evidently chosen to live in a state of constant delusion, which was far removed from the ground reality, with not even a remote connection with facts and figures.

“For 10 years, their (SAD-BJP) government messed up with Punjab on every count, destroying every sector and pulling the state down to the pits with respect to its social, economic and other key aspects of growth. No wonder the people threw them out in 2017, and in every election thereafter,” said Amarinder.

Pointing to the Economic Governance indicator data used in the report, the CM said it related to 2016-17, thus reflecting the progress in the sector under the previous government. Even the data under Social welfare and development, sex ratio at birth, health insurance coverage and empowerment of minorities dated back to the previous government’s time, he further noted.