'Resign or shut down businesses'

Chandigarh, May 3: Congress leader Amarinder Singh on Sunday demanded that Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal should either resign from his post or shut down his family’s transport and other businesses, including the controversial Orbit Aviation, as it was a clear case of conflict of interest. “All these years, in a clear case of conflict of interest, you have brutally abused your position and power and multiplied your fleet of buses from 40 to 250 by threatening and bullying not only other private transporters, but also the PRTC (Punjab Road Transport Corporation) and Punjab Roadways, into submission, which has eventually led to everybody, except you, suffering huge losses while you are making huge profits,” Amarinder Singh, the deputy party leader in the Lok Sabha, said in a statement issued here. Amarinder Singh said that when he became Punjab chief minister in 2002, he was on the board of directors of some companies like Ranbaxy, DLF, Industrial Cables and Mount Shivalik Breweries, and steeped down. “I resigned from all the companies after seeking legal opinion from the Punjab advocate general, who told me that this amounted to conflict of interest since all these companies were based in and operating from Punjab,” he noted. (ians)