Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini alleged on Friday, 6 November, that the Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab spent elsewhere the ₹1,600 crore that Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced for the flood-hit state last year. Speaking to reporters in Chandigarh, he said Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had earlier promised compensation for every loss, down to a single hen, and had said he did not need to look to the Centre for funds. Saini added that the Prime Minister gave ₹1,600 crore to Punjab and ₹1,500 crore to Himachal Pradesh, and that Himachal used its share. Saini is the leader of a neighbouring state, and no reply from the Punjab government had been reported at the time of writing.
The argument that the allegation has substance starts with what the Centre says it sent. The ₹1,600 crore was announced in September 2025 as immediate flood relief, on top of the ₹12,000 crore already in the state's disaster fund. Union Minister Ravneet Singh Bittu said in November 2025 that more than ₹800 crore had already been sent to the Punjab government and given to victims, and that the compensation the Mann government was distributing came from Central grants. Saini also says farmers told him that ministers handed out compensation cheques in front of cameras and took them back later, and that the promise of ₹1,000 a month for women made before the 2022 election is still unmet. Supporters of the charge say that a government with a record of unmet promises should explain where the money went.
The case against the charge is that Punjab has consistently said the special package never arrived, and that the scale of the flood was far larger than the sum offered. Mann said in November 2025 that Punjab had received none of the ₹1,600 crore, that the funds it did receive were routine State Disaster Response Fund allocations it would have got anyway, and that disbursement of the special package was zero. The state assembly had asked for a ₹20,000 crore package, so ₹1,600 crore is only 8 percent of that demand. Punjab faced its worst flood since 1988, with 52 deaths and crops damaged on 1.91 lakh hectares, according to reports in September 2025. The state also raised its own compensation, for example to ₹20,000 an acre for crops lost between 75 and 100 percent, from ₹6,800, and to ₹1.20 lakh for a fully damaged house. The ₹800 crore figure is a claim by BJP leaders and has not been independently verified.
The dispute matters because relief money is the one thing flood victims need, and a quarrel over who sent it and where it went delays trust and repair. Punjab is a major farming state, so any delay in rebuilding fields and homes affects the whole rural economy. With the next Assembly election in Punjab due by early 2027, the charge also shows how relief has become a political weapon between the BJP and the AAP, and neighbouring chief ministers are now joining the argument.
The allegation cannot be settled by statements alone, because each side relies on different accounts of the same money. A published account of what was released, when and for what would answer it, and flood-hit families deserve that more than a press conference.
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