CHANDIGARH: The Akali leader, Parkash Singh Badal, has described the government’s week long celebrations to mark its one year in office as a “cruel reminder of its brutal insensitivity to the agony of the people of Punjab.”
Ina statement issued here, Badal said the Beant Singh government had left almost sever family living in villages mourning the death of its dear ones and the state was reeling under the impact of police repression, harassment, “fake” encounters and “illegal” confinements.
The performance of any government should be judged by three factors: its adherence to the rule of the law and respect for human nights; its success or failure in redressing the grievances of various sections and removing the causes behind the grievances, On all three counts, there was hardly anything for this government to celebrate, he said,
He complained that the government had legitimized repression against the masses, flouting all rules. He ridiculed the claims of the government that democracy had been restored at the grass root level. He said the government itself was the biggest insult to the sprint of democracy. Since it did not have a conscience, it felt no embarrassment at the total lack of popular mandate. The Congress had come to power by “’short circuiting” the will of the people, he said. It had reduced democracy to a joke by using massive official machinery to influence the results of municipal and panchayat elections.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 19, 1993
