Chandigarh – Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring today lashed out at the Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann trying to mislead people of Punjab either because of his ignorance or outright lying.
Responding to Mann’s claims that the Pachwara coal mine was closed by the previous government and his government will be starting it soon, Warring said, it was during the previous Congress regime that Punjab State Power Corporation (PSPCL) won the case in the Supreme Court of India to start mining operations in Pachwara coal mine located in Jharkhand.
The PCC president said, the Aam Aadmi Party leaders are chronic and compulsive liars and they are telling the lies about Pachhwara mine also. Giving details of the case, he said, the coalmine had actually been allotted to Punjab way back in 2001.
The coalmine was closed since 2014 not because any government stopped operating it, but the Supreme Court of India cancelled its allocation along with other 212 coalmines across India.
He said, the coal mine was again allotted to the state in 2015 and an operator was chosen for operating the mine in competitive bidding and tender was allotted to the lowest bidder.
But, the PCC president disclosed, the previous bidder approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which allotted the operation to it. Since that would have caused loss to the state, the PSPCL went to the Supreme Court, which ruled in its favour on September 21, 2021. This will save PSPCL about Rs 600 crores annually.
Normally it takes about 6 months for the mine to start operation, Warring pointed out, while asking Mann, what is his or his government’s contribution in it. “It was all done by our government”, he told Mann.
Asserting that this was yet another lie of the AAP government, the PCC president referred to its recent claims that the Chief Minister met union coal minister Prahlad Joshi for supply of coal and the minister straightway denied that Mann had ever met him, saying, “AAP has a habit of lying, Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann never met me over coal crisis”. The AAP MP Raghav Chadha had told the media that Mann had met the union coal minister, which the latter denied straightway.
