This story is from December 2, 2019

Two disgruntled Congress MLAs from Patiala skip loan mela for women investors

Monitoring Panel Meeting Called Off
Two disgruntled Congress MLAs from Patiala skip loan mela for women investors
PATIALA: Simmering discontent among Congress MLAs from Patiala refuses to die down, with two legislators on Saturday boycotting the loan mela for women entrepreneurs at the Patiala municipal corporation office.
Their act prompted the administration to call off the district development coordination and monitoring committee that was scheduled in the day. Patiala MP Preneet Kaur, who is the wife of Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh, was the chief guest for the loan disbursal event.

During a meeting of the district grievance redressal committee, held under cabinet minister Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, at the district administrative complex, the four MLAs had redflagged several issues in the working of the bureaucracy. MLAs Hardial Kamboj (Rajpura), Madan Lal Jalalpur (Ghanour), Rajinder Singh (Samana) and Nirmal Singh (Shutrana) had alleged phone tapping and corruption by officials, following which the state government had immediately transferred the Patiala SDM to the personnel department at Chandigarh. More action followed -- the in-charge of Kheri Gandian police station in Rajpura was suspended, three cops posted with the crime investigation agency (CIA) in Rajpura dismissed for their involvement with drug peddlers and a case registered against Samana CIA in-charge Vijay Kumar on charges of kidnapping and extortion.
On November 29, the disgruntled MLAs had held a press conference here, saying there were more issues that they wanted to raise but did not have a platform. They had also lamented the fact that the CM had not granted them a hearing. However, they had met Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president Sunil Jakhar at a wedding in Patiala recently and discussed various issues with him. Jakhar had assured them that he would take feedback from all Congress MLAs in Punjab before taking up the matter with chief minister Amarinder.
On Saturday, much to the embarrassment of the loan mela organisers, who had pasted name slips of the four MLAs on front row seats, Rajinder and Nirmal did not attend it. The event was chaired by the Patiala MP and attended by cabinet minister Sadhu Singh Dharamsot and other Congress functionaries from the district. As media persons began clicking pictures of the empty seats, some officials removed the name slips of the MLAs.
Replying to media queries later, the MP claimed that all efforts were afoot to resolve the issues raised by Congress legislators and added that the state government was with them and all their concerns would be addressed. However, the district administration went ahead and cancelled the meeting of district development coordination and monitoring committee scheduled later in the day.
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