PATIALA, Sept 30: Gurkanwal Kaur, the newly appointed president of the Punjab Pradesh Mahila Congress, here today said that the Punjab government had stopped allocation of funds for the Beant Singh memrial memorial being built in Chandigarh.Addressing addressing a press conference, she said that the Punjab Government had promised to spend Rs 7 crore on the Beant Singh memorial. But after the initial allocation of Rs 2 crore funds were not forthcoming and now the work on the project was at a standstill. She said that the matter came up for discussion at a meeting of the Beant Singh memorial committee at Chandigarh on Monday.She said that the matter would be taken up with the Punjab Governor asBeant Singh had laid down his life for the restoration of peace in Punjab.Gurkanwal Kaur was accompanied by Praneet Kaur, wife of Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) chief Capt Amrinder Singh and Satya Walia, a former senior vice president of the Punjab Pradesh Mahila Congress.Gurkanwal Kaur said that the ruling Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Government in Punjab had failed to fulfill its election promises and there was growing disenchantment among the masses against the alliance government. She saw a definite swing towards the Congress among the masses because of the failure of the government on the law and order front and failure to check the rising prices of the essential commodities.She said that she would formally take over as Mahila Congress chief on October 6 and would constitute the body after that. She said that premium would be on good work and performance in the matter of selection of office bearers in the new team of the Mahila Congress.She said that her endeavour would be to reactivate the party at the grass-root level. She planned to undertake extensive tour of the state to get a feel of the ground level situation and Mahila Congress units would would be set up at the ward level and block levels also.Praneet Kaur said that there was tremendous response of applicants for the Congress ticket for the 17 wards reserved reserved for women in the Patiala Municipal Corporation elections scheduled to be held shortly.
