Chandigarh: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) senior leader and Sangrur Member of Parliament (MP) Bhagwant Mann has stressed the need for direct international flights between Canada, Europe, America and Amritsar and Chandigarh. He demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should take an urgent call on the issue thereby saving the people of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and parts of Haryana from the unmerited harassment being meted out to them in the absence of regular int’l flights. He has urged Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh to broach the issue with the union government to expedite the matter.
In a statement issue from party head quarter in Chandigarh here on Monday, Mann expressed his displeasure over the pending issue which concerns among others, Punjabis, especially the NRIs and others. He lamented that the issue which could have been resolved much earlier had been hanging fire for a pretty ling time due to the lackadaisical attitude of subsequent governments – the BJP-SAD and Congress – in the saddle for longer spells of power in the state. He slammed the for procrastinating on the issue.
Mann accused the government of colluding with a powerful transport and airport mafia in the state, including the Badal clan as transporters, leading to the stalling of the process of starting up-down direct international flight to countries like Canada, Europe, America and Australia.
Mann added that Canada government had sent a draft proposal to its Indian counterpart to start direct int’l flight between Abbotsford and Sri Amritsar Sahib and Vancouver and Chandigarh. He alleged that the proposal was gathering dust in the office files as the government was not in a mood to act on it, leaving millions of NRIs from Punjab and international passengers from the neighboring states rue and rant and by paying through the nose. He has urged the union Government to expedite the proposal pending with it for a pretty long time now to help out those affected.
Mann further said that the union government was under the pull and pressure of a strong mafia that stalled the smooth run of the Chandigarh International Airport in spite of the fact that it had all probabilities in place to operate successfully. He said that it was a matter of surprise that due to the overreach of the mafia, that the direct int’l flights running successfully for Sri Amritsar Sahib Int’l Airport had to discontinue, he alleged.
He threatened that if the government failed to address the problem of plenty soon, the AAP would be left with no option but to take road route to Parliament to make the deaf government hear.