Chandigarh: Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh today hit out at Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal for questioning his style of functioning, saying he did not need any lessons from the former deputy chief minister on how to govern the state. 

"Given his own total failure on the governance front, as was evident from the complete mess the erstwhile government had plunged the state into, Sukhbir had no locus standi to comment on anyone's governance style," said the Chief Minister in a statement here.

At a political conference in Talwandi Sabo in Bathinda yesterday, Sukhbir had questioned Amarinder's style of functioning and alleged he had no control over the government and that the bureaucracy has become unbridled and police top brasses were having a free run.  

Amarinder Singh said Sukhbir's statement was totally senseless. Unlike the Akalis led by the Badals, the Chief Minister said, he believed in giving his civil and police administrations a free hand to function so that they can work effectively. 

"The bureaucrats and police officials had been totally stifled by the Badals," he alleged, adding that if that was the "control" Sukhbir was referring to, then he was happy and proud not to be exercising that. "Had I not given a free hand to the police, the gang wars, the targeted killings and the desecrations that had destroyed the state's law and order under the Akali regime would still have been continuing," Amarinder said.  

"The bureaucracy is also now functioning more transparently than it was ever allowed to do during the decade-long SAD-BJP rule," he alleged. Amarinder Singh also defended his government's stand in the Supreme Court in a 30-year-old road rage case against Navjot Singh Sidhu, saying it was the only legal option available to it.  

The state government in the apex court recently favoured the Punjab and Haryana High Court verdict convicting and awarding a three-year jail term to Sidhu in the 1988 case.   The CM also challenged Sukhbir to come out with one legal remedy which could have enabled the government to reverse its stand.  

Instead of wasting time in such falsehoods and misinformation, Sukhbir should invest his energy in securing the interests of Punjab with the central government, led by his party's ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he said. Meanwhile, Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal also lambasted Sukhbir for trying to "mislead" the people of Punjab with his "blatantly false statements" on the state's financial situation.  

In a statement issued here, Manpreet accused the previous Akali government of "mortgaging" not just the state's properties but the future of its youths. "They sold out Punjab and its interests in every possible way, leaving behind a trail of devastation, capped by a Rs. 2.08 lakh crore debt burden," said the Finance Minister. PTI