Breakdown of law and order in Punjab, gangsters mushrooming: Sukhbir Badal

Ludhiana, May 2 (IANS) Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) President Sukhbir Badal on Thursday said the breakdown of law and order and "gangster culture" under the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) rule has sounded a death knell to Punjab's industry, asserting that his party once elected to power would eradicate gangsters and created an investor-friendly climate. 

The SAD President, who was here to campaign in the city for party candidate Ranjit Singh Dhillon, had an interaction with industrialists, besides heading the Punjab Bachao Yatra in Khanna in favour of the party’s Fatehgarh Sahib candidate Bikramjit Singh Khalsa.

Badal said: "It is condemnable that home-grown industrialists are leaving Punjab and investing in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh."

He said industrialists from the state had already invested Rs 20,000 crore in other states, a huge loss to the state’s economy.

Asserting that the AAP government and Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann were solely responsible for this state of affairs, Badal said: "Industrialists told me that many of their compatriots had thought it fit to pay extortion amounts because the state government had failed to curb gangsters."

He said industrialists had conveyed how they had not got a single concession from the AAP government and that their power bills had also been hiked making their business unviable. He said some industrialists also pointed out that they were facing problems in sourcing raw materials as their counterparts were apprehensive about dealing with them in the current situation.

--IANS

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