Manpreet now takes ‘gardener’ jibe at babus

CHANDIGARH: Barely 48 hours after commenting that the babus in Punjab are very poor in writing English, finance minister Manpreet Badal on Tuesday stuck to his stand and took another jibe on the standard of writing of officials.

“Whatever I said from the stage was a general comment that the standards of writing both Punjabi and English have gone down to a great extent. It was only an academic discussion on the issue. It was not meant to insult anybody,” said Manpreet while answering a question in the media briefing done on the issue of cabinet decisions.

The finance minister, however, took another sharp dig at the babus saying that to get the difference of standards one should check the budget speeches of Sir Manohar Lal, who remained finance minister of Punjab from 1936-1947.

“You read Sir Manohar Lal’s budget speech and check speeches written for Manpreet Badal’s budget. You will find standard of my speeches very low and it would appear that these are written by Manohar Lal’s gardener,” Manpreet said.

Addressing the concluding session of the World Punjabi Conference in Chandigarh on Sunday, Manpreet said: “Barring one or two, other IAS officers don’t know how to write correct English. They don’t know how to write a letter. When I read letters and memorandum written by them to the government of India, I hang my head in shame. How have they passed IAS (exam).”