Badal says Centre should work in tandem with states

FATEHGARH SAHIB: Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Tuesday asked the Centre to function in tandem with the states to ensure overall development of the country in general and states in particular.
    
"Centre cannot achieve the targeted growth rate unless it takes along all the states who are equal partners in the the process of the country's economic development", he said here at a function to pay tributes to the younger Sahibzadas Baba Zorawar Singh and Baba Fateh Singh of the Tenth Master Sri Guru Gobind Singh ji on their 303rd martyrdom day.
    
Badal said the Centre could not throttle the states and deprive them of their justified rights.
    
States like Punjab which contributed 60 per cent towards the national food grain could not be ignored in issues related to farmers like fixation of MSP and the supply of agricultural inputs, including fertilizers besides the subsidies announced by the Centre from time to time he said.
    
He said the increase in the MSP of wheat by Rs. 250 per quintal was an outcome of the persistent efforts of the SAD-BJP government to persuade the Centre for upward revision of MSP.
    
He expressed his government's commitment to fight for the farmers' cause to ensure justice to them.
   
Badal also blamed the Congress for the 1984 anti-Sikh riots on the occasion and said it exposed the truth behind the party's much-hyped 'secular image'.
   
He, however, said, "none could suppress the indomitable spirit of the Sikhs as this community had been blessed with unique quality of valour and courage."