Reacting to the statement of Union minister for food processing Harsimrat Kaur Badal that Punjab BJP president Kamal Sharma should quit over drug-related graft case against an aide, Dera Baba Nanak Congress legislator Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa has told her to first seek the resignation of her own brother, state cabinet minister Bikram Singh Majithia.
Randhawa told the Union minister, who is also wife of Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, that her brother's name had cropped up in drug-related scandals many times, and even arrested drug lord Jagdish Bhola had named him. "How can you deny the close association of your brother with Jagdish Bhola, Satta, Jagjit Chahal and Bittu Aulakh, who are main accused in the (synthetic) drug racket? Just because Majithia is your brother, you are going to every extent to shield him, including in the ED (enforcement directorate) investigation," the MLA said here on Saturday.
He reminded Harsimrat Kaur that even chief parliamentary secretary Dr Navjot Kaur Sidhu had called Majithia "the mastermind of gangsters". "Why didn't you seek resignation from your brother after such grave allegations by a leader of your alliance," said Randhawa, claiming this as a classic example of "political hypocrisy" and "acute selective blindness". "Dhritrashtra was so blinded by the love for his son that he got his empire destroyed," he told the Union minister what the Mahabharata says.
The MLA told her to ask what she had done for Punjab. "The Assocham report says investment in Punjab has decreased by 93%. Shouldn't you quit on moral grounds for failing to bring any investment to the state?" he asked her futher. He said chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, "who is unable to take any decision on political matters and just left to pass his time doing sangat darshans", had his deepest sympathies.
{{/usCountry}}The MLA told her to ask what she had done for Punjab. "The Assocham report says investment in Punjab has decreased by 93%. Shouldn't you quit on moral grounds for failing to bring any investment to the state?" he asked her futher. He said chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, "who is unable to take any decision on political matters and just left to pass his time doing sangat darshans", had his deepest sympathies.
{{/usCountry}}Randhawa said: "The decade of terrorism is considered a dark period but when Punjab's history will be rewritten after a few decades, the current rule of Badal will be recorded as the darkest, in which an entire generation was lost to drugs, mafia rule, shattered economy, and suicide on farms."