Speaking at Hoshiarpur/Nawanshahar on August 6, deputy chief minister and Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal said, “It is a false propaganda by the Congress that the Punjab government’s coffers are empty. We have sufficient funds to run the state. In fact, the Centre should issue a White Paper on the country’s financial status.”

Sukhbir is justified in demanding that the UPA government should issue a White Paper on the country’s financial status as the country’s economy is sinking. The rupee has hit an all-time low against the dollar. Global investors have pulled billions from the share market. As a consequence, shares’ have fallen by their steepest in nearly two years. The price of gold has scaled a six-month high.

Admitting that the economy is not in good health, the prime minister and the finance minister have claimed that it is largely due to the global factors. They have expressed optimism that the situation will soon improve and the 1991-like balance of payment crisis when the country had to mortgage even its gold reserves will not be allowed to happen.

Sukhbir’s demand of the UPA government issuing a White Paper on the country’s financial status will gain credibility if the Akali-BJP government also issues a White Paper on the state’s own financial status. One is sure that it would not do so as the state’s fiscal health is on the verge of collapse mainly due to the present government’s election-oriented populist policies and fiscal mismanagement.

Facts don’t tell lie. The reports daily filling the newspapers columns expose the hollowness of the chief minister-in–waiting’s optimistic claim that “the state government has sufficient funds to run the state”. To mention a few: Government runs on borrowed money resulting in the state’s debt mounting to nearly Rs. one lakh crore; delay in payment of salaries to employees; non-payment of enhanced widow pensions; old age pension and pension for the disabled and unemployment allowance, non-provision of promised tablets for Class XII girl students and bicycles and non-supply of dal for six months to the eligible poor under the state government’s atta-dal scheme, diversion and non-utilisation of central grants because of the state government’s failure to contribute its matching share.

Despite this pessimistic scenario, the dominant ruling Akali leadership continues to make promises involving huge funds while most of the pre-election promises it had made remain unfulfilled.

The ruling Akali Dal’s top brass has been carrying out a tirade against the Centre for “discriminating” against Punjab in granting funds. No doubt, the Centre must help the states, particularly Punjab, to come out of the financial mess but most of them have happened mainly due to their financial mismanagement and populist policies. But while asking for more funds, the Punjab’s Akali-BJP government also must respond to the centre’s accountability condition.

The state government has been diverting or misutilising the centrally granted funds for non-specified purposes. Some of the funds remain unutilised as the government has not contributed its matching share. In violation of the centre’s mandate, the Punjab government is putting pictures of its top ruling leaders on some of the centrally-provided utility schemes like 108 ambulances or on a portal meant to register students for scholarship under the UPA’s direct benefit transfer scheme. The strategy seems to be to pressurise the Centre by charging it with “discriminating” against Punjab in providing money the state’s coalition government would obviously use to fund its populist schemes for promoting its electoral prospects.

Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones on the others.

Sukhbir recently theorised that anti-incumbency is no longer relevant; it is the development factor which decides the outcome of elections. No doubt, the development factor has emerged as a major issue in deciding electoral fortunes of incumbent ruling parties. But if one goes by Sukhbir’s logic about irrelevance of anti-incumbency then the anti-incumbency sentiment generated against the scams-hit UPA government should not hit its electoral prospects in 2014 elections.

The validity of Sukhbir’s anti-incumbency and development thesis will be put to test in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The print media daily carries reports about the migration of industries out of Punjab, the latest being the reported plan of Punjab’s three major industrial houses shifting out of Punjab.

The most worrying development is Sukhbir’s authoritarian functioning style and his Emergency mindset. Realising that it would be impossible for him to curb the freedom of media by influencing the otherwise independent print media, he concentrated his attention on the electronic media.

Early this August, an eminent journalist Kanwar Sandhu, managing editor of Day and Night news channel resigned, following its owners’ decision to drastically scale down the company’s operations. Sandhu blamed the channel’s financial woes on its continued blockage on the cable network in Punjab “at the behest of a powerful political entity” (Sukhbir Singh).

During the Akali-BJP government’s 2007-2012 rule, a company reportedly owing allegiance to Sukhbir had acquired monopoly over the cable network in Punjab. Small cable operators protested but without any result. Since the company had monopolised cable network telecasting, Day and Night was barred allegedly for reporting the opposition parties’ activities. On a complaint by Sandhu, the Competition Commission of India imposed a fine of over Rs. 8 crore on the telecasting company for monopolising nearly 85 percent of cable telecasting. The company reportedly filed an appeal against the CCI decision before the appellant authority.

What is most surprising is that the above worrisome happenings are taking place under the chief ministership of Parkash Singh Badal whose known humility, democratic functioning style and fare mindedness has contributed to his emerging as the most popular leader of Punjab.

As Benjamin Disraeli had said, “Justice is truth in action”. (IPA Service)