Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, April 18

Hitting out at Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal for trying to “mislead” the people, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Saturday categorically rejected her claims of Central relief being provided to the state for fighting Covid.

“Your information is absolutely incorrect,” said Capt Amarinder in response to Harsimrat’s series of tweets in which she claimed that “Punjab received funds and grains to deal with the Covid crisis”.

“The state has received absolutely no money from the Central government in its fight against Covid,” said the Chief Minister, terming Harsimrat’s remarks as another manifestation of “her compulsive habit of lying and being ill-informed” about even the basic facts relating to her own state.

Asking her to cross-check her facts, the Chief Minister said instead of using her office as a Central minister to help out her own state, Harsimrat was shamelessly indulging in petty politics.

“What are you doing sitting there if you can’t fight for Punjab and its people,” the Chief Minister asked Harsimrat, lashing out at her for trying to undermine the state government’s efforts instead of supporting it.

Nailing Harsimrat’s lies, the Chief Minister pointed out that the Rs2,366 crore referred to by her on the GST count was Punjab’s money, in lieu of the GST owed to the state against arrears. And even there, Rs4,400 crore of the state’s money was still pending with the government, he added.

“You couldn’t even get our own pending arrears released, leave alone get us the much-needed relief package to fight the Covid battle,” he quipped.