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Save Punjab from the miserable state of affair
“Ae Mere Watan Ke Logo”
“Awaaz do hum ek hain
Chandigarh, 20th July : People’s Party of Punjab, today launched an album of its official campaign songs. The lyrics for these songs have been written by popular artist Bhagwant Mann. Speaking on the occasion, party President Manpreet Badal said, “It would be inappropriate to call them PPP promotional songs. These are creations directed to exhort people of Punjab to save their state from the miserable state of affairs that our beloved state finds itself in. Many of the songs in the album, especially the opening song do not even have a mention of PPP or my name. They highlight the ills plaguing our society today.” Mr Badal added that the purpose of this musical anthology is to motivate the people especially the youngsters. “History is replete with examples where songs played a pivotal role in bringing about a revolution. Bankim Chandra’s “Vande Matram” made the youth challenge the might of British Empire, Azad Hind Fauj’s anthem upped the morale of a poorly equipped army of exceptionally brave men, Bismil Sahib ‘s creation of “Sarfaroshi Ki Tamanna” shook the foundations of colonial rule. Even in independent India, when we were threatened by Chinese in 1962 Lataji’s rendition of “Ae Mere Watan Ke Logo” and Rafi Sahib’s “Awaaz do hum ek hain” helped keeping the entire nation together.”
He added that it would be presumptuous of him to draw parallels with these great creations. “I am not drawing parallels. These are creations by great people and we are seeking inspiration from them. Most of these soul stirring creations were scripted even before I was born, but they continue to have a profound effect on our consciousness till now. Though my own interest in music is meagre but during my student days, I remember how John Lennon’s “Imagine” gave solace to a generation torn apart by frustrations of war and Scorpion’s “Winds of Change”, captured the relief witnessed after the fall of Berlin wall. So, the idea is to convey what is happening in Punjab right now, not only to people in the state but also to the people who are attached to the State, people who love this land and are spread all over the world. Every child in Punjab grows up listening “Mera Rang De Basanti Chola”. I only hope that these songs will accentuate his patriotism and goad him to work constructively towards Punjab’s betterment.”
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Memorandum against the persecution, vendetta and Victimization unleashed by the Government of Punjab against the People’s Party of Punjab.
To
His Excellency, Governor of the Punjab, Chandigarh.
Dated Chandigarh, the 6th July, 2011.
Your Excellency,
Through this memorandum, we place before your honour a recital of the continuing tragic excesses that are being perpetrated on the People’s Party of Punjab, in the hope that the highest office in the State, through which Your Excellency exercises constitutional powers as Head of State, will look into the tragic, unfortunate and verifiable incidents, that have endangered good governance in Punjab and take immediate steps to restore the democratic process.
2. Before approaching Your Excellency, we had written to the Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister, the Chief Secretary and the DGP of the State apprising them of the unjust treatment being meted out to us. We have repeatedly made requests to all these people to bring an end to miseries being perpetuated against us. However, nothing happened. Rather, this bullying has intensified. We have also brought this issue to public and the government’s notice through media as well. Recently, we also wrote to the Human Rights Commission. But, unfortunately, our persecution continues unabated. Hence, we have been left with no other option but to approach Your Excellency through this Memorandum.
3. The Director General of Police and Chief of the Vigilance Bureau have been registering false cases against my political associates and colleagues, well-wishers, family members and personal staff, pursuing vendetta politics against the People’s Party of Punjab and its workers with the sole object of isolating and denigrating me, publicly, and to pulverize the justifiable noble aspirations of the People’s Party of Punjab formed to save the State from cataclysmic disaster and the rule of the jungle, unleashed by the Deputy Chief Minister and his coterie created by the now helpless Chief Minister of Punjab, unmindful of the fact that fair play in the political arena is the sustaining oxygen of democracy.
4. As Your Excellency is aware, eight and half months ago, I resigned from the office of the Finance Minister, Punjab, in the present Government led by Mr. Parkash Singh Badal, on issues concerning good governance, as I found that the State Government’s finances were teetering on the brink of a frightening chasm owing to the thoughtless, extravagant, avoidable expenditure and with a rapidly mounting debt trap that had become a galloping cancer in the body politic of Punjab.
5. Ever since I demitted charge as Finance Minister to form a political party, a series of atrocities have been orchestrated by the present political dispensation and its stooges in the Shiromani Akali Dal to pulverize my supporters who have been arrested in a series of false cases fabricated against them; dozens of prominent persons have been arrested, others are languishing in jails all over the State, and my party has been denied the basic right of free expression and peaceful gathering in public places and even in Gurdwaras in violation of the Constitution of India which is totally tangential to the tenets of the Sikh faith, indeed all religious thoughts and morality.
6. Numberless false cases have been registered against my party workers only to curb their right to associate with a political party of their choice.
7. Illustratively, several cases have been registered against my OSD, Charanjit Singh Brar, while the another OSD Jagtar Singh has also been booked by the Police. False cases have been registered against Satinderjit Singh Manta, P.A. to my father S. Gurdas Singh Badal, while non-bailable sections of the SC& ST Act have been invoked to arrest sarpanches and party workers, supporting the People’s Party of Punjab. Therefore, on behalf of the PPP and in the interest of democracy in the State we demand that the guilty police officials be prosecuted forthwith, transferred and punished to ensure fair policing in the present and in the run up to the Assembly elections.
8. Who would know better than Your Excellency, who has had a long, illustrious career and has served the nation with distinction as Home Minister of India and as a Presiding Officer of our Lok Sabha, that officers of the IPS cadre, once they are appointed and step into the police uniform adorned by the badges of democracy, take an oath to abide by and protect the Constitution of India?
9. Today, in Punjab, these senior IPS officers have been converted into hired lackeys of Mr. Sukhbir Singh Badal, a self-styled Deputy Chief Minister, who has assumed charge by subverting the democratic process and the functioning of good governance by using the carrot and stick method with IPS and IAS Officers.
10. Your Excellency, it is unimaginable that the State Director General of Police, who has been specially implanted from Jammu & Kashmir on deputation, superseding the rightful promotional prospects of serving DGPs’ of the Punjab Cadre, so that Sukhbir Singh Badal could continuously dangle the Damocles’ sword over his head, is now being given a seat by the SAD to fight elections to the Punjab Vidhan Sabha, supported by the police force that he is supposed to discipline and superintend and whose neutral official functioning he is duty bound to ensure. The state DGP has become a stakeholder in subverting the sacred democratic process with all the force and weaponry, at his command.
11. Likewise, the State Chief Secretary has been assured a plum constitutional post while another senior bureaucrat has been promised the chairmanship of the Punjab Right to Service Commission likely to be established soon. It is unimaginable that these officials can act in an impartial manner.
12. Your Excellency may agree with me that such Officers or such a Director General of Police, cannot permit free and fair elections to be held to the Assembly.
13. It is immediately necessary to ban, through an executive fiat, any post retirement appointment of the incumbent Secretaries. The DGP should immediately be repatriated to his parent cadre of Jammu and Kashmir as he, in any case, is a deputationist without any right to be posted in the Punjab IPS cadre.
14. Mr. Sukhbir Badal has made the Government subservient to his political designs to hold on to power in the State, and apart from serving as mindless supporters of the present governmental machinery, the officers are encouraging unimaginable corruption to fill up the coffers of the SAD.
15. Your Excellency, Punjab has been desecrated and laid waste by a band of locusts led by Mr. Sukhbir Badal. There is no law and order in the State, no accountability, and the prosperity and peace of a settled society has been ruthlessly turned on its head.
16. Your Excellency, the People’s Party of Punjab has given the clarion call for economic freedom and social justice, for education and health cover, for a society that is free and just where the steeply uneven levels of economic disparity are ironed out. We appeal to Your Excellency through this memorandum to invoke Your Excellency’s constitutional powers under the Constitution of India, to rein in the Government in power and to ensure that all false cases registered against the People’s Party of Punjab are withdrawn immediately and to stop all false cases that are in the pipeline to book our workers, from being registered or pursued.
17. Your Excellency’s timely intervention will allow the people of the State of Punjab and its democratic process a fresh lease of life.
Thanking you, Your Excellency,
Yours Sincerely,
(Manpreet Singh Badal)
President
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