Gadkari skips road inauguration in Bathinda, no fresh date fixed
EVENT CANCELLED DUE TO ERRATIC WEATHER; SUKHBIR, HARSIMRAT AND BJP LEADERS ADDRESS RALLY TO THANK CENTRE
BATHINDA: The state government programme to inaugurate Bathinda-Zirakpur (part of National Highway (NH)-7) and Bathinda-Amritsar (part of NH-54) four-lane roads on Monday was cancelled with Union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari’s visit being cancelled due to erratic weather. Gadkari was to launch the projects with chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh scheduled to preside over the event. No fresh date has been given.
The roads are functional and people are using it as and when different sections are being completed.
Even as the event did not materialise, the leaders of the Shiromani Akal Dal (SAD) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held a rally to express thanks to the central government for the road projects. SAD president and former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and Union food processing industries minister, who is also Bathinda MP, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, addressed the rally.
“The state saw unprecedented development in the state during the tenure of the SAD-BJP government. Under the Congress, development has halted as the party unnecessarily keeps claiming that there is lack of funds,” Sukhbir said.
Sukhbir claimed that Gadkari had told him that Expressways from Amritsar to Delhi and Jalandhar to Ajmer via Bathinda had also been sanctioned that the SAD-BJP regime had requested for.
In her address, Harsimrat condemned the state government, blaming it for the delay in starting work on the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
Repeating a charge he had made last week too, she added, “The AIIMS has not been started as the Punjab government hasn’t acted and done whatever is required on its part — be it changing the course of a water channel passing through the project site, shifting of the electricity wires passing through the site or completing the work on approach road.”