Channi nephew sought Rs 2 crore from cricketer for govt job, says Mann; former CM denies

Mann said he met a Punjab cricketer in Dharamshala when he was in Himachal Pradesh to watch an Indian Premier League match last week. “I will not reveal his name. He plays in Punjab’s team,” said Mann.

The CM claimed the cricketer told him that he had applied for a government job under the sports quota. When Capt Amarinder Singh was the chief minister, the cricketer was told that he would get the job, said Mann.

The CM claimed that the cricketer and his father then met Channi, who replaced Amarinder as chief minister, and he told them to meet his nephew. The cricketer told Mann that he met Channi’s nephew, who assured him that he would get a job but raised a demand for “two”, the AA leader claimed.

“The player took Rs 2 lakh to Channi’s nephew, who abused him and said ‘two’ means Rs 2 crore. They (Channi) call themselves poor. For them ‘two’ means Rs 2 crore, not Rs 2 lakh,” the AAP leader said.

Later, speaking to reporters, Channi hit out at Mann for levelling serious allegations against him and rubbished the claims. The Congress leader said he never took money for jobs or transfers through his nephew.

Meanwhile, Mann said the previous regimes in Punjab had “mercilessly plundered” the state due to which it had lagged behind in progress. He the previous governments “sold jobs” and added that his government will recover every single penny from “these corrupt leaders who robbed the state”, Mann asserted.

Mann also criticised the central government for imposing a value cut on wheat. He said that every single penny thus cut would be extracted from the Centre with interest, adding that filling the national food pool would not be possible without the state’s hard-working and resilient farmers.

The chief minister further said the Centre was unnecessarily harassing the state by depriving it of legitimate funds. He said that funds worth Rs 3,000 crore under the rural development fee were still pending with the Centre. Also stalled was the state’s share of GST, he said, adding that such poor decisions were souring the Centre-state relations. “RDF is our right,” Mann asserted.

Mann further said the upcoming multi-storey tehsil complex at Dirba would be spread over nine acres of land and house the SDM office, DSP office, tehsildar office, Fard Kendra, tehsil office and BDPO office, among others. The complex will come up at a cost of nearly Rs 9 crore within a year, he said, adding that such modern tehsil complexes would be built across the state.

The chief minister said that with strenuous efforts, the state government had started a process to reverse the brain drain from Punjab. According to him, the youth are returning from abroad to play an active role in the state’s socio-economic growth.

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