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Take action if evidence links us to drugs, sacrilege cases: Sukhbir dares Channi govt
Sukhbir Badal said what stopped the Congress government from acting against SAD leaders if there was evidence to link them to drug and sacrilege cases
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Thursday dared the Congress government in Punjab to act against him or any other Akali leader if it has evidence to link them to drugs and sacrilege cases.
Sukhbir was talking to the mediapersons after inducting Congress party’s intellectual cell’s former chairman Anish Sidana and his supporters into the party at SAD headquarters in Chandigarh. Sukhbir announced Sidana’s appointment as his political adviser for urban areas. Sidana’s exit comes after another senior Hindu leader Raman Behl left the Congress and joined the Aam Aadmi Party on November 9. The Congress is facing the challenge of retaining its Hindu leaders.
Sidana, a member of the Kandi Area Development Board (KADB) till a few months ago, belongs to Jalalabad and had been voicing his concerns regarding the lack of adequate representation in the state Congress. On October 31, he even wrote an open letter to Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, citing indiscipline in the party.
Reacting to demands by the Congress party for making public a report by the state government’s special task force (STF) on drugs, which is lying in sealed cover at the Punjab and Haryana high court, Sukhbir said, “What stopped the Congress government from acting against the drug traffickers during their four-and half-year term. None was arrested, and now the government is politicising the issue by targeting us. They could have released the report and I throw a challenge on them to come out with the slightest of evidence against us,” added Sukhbir.
The drugs case came up for hearing in the high court on Thursday and was adjourned for December 6.
“The chief minister, home minister Sukhjinder Randhawa and DGP IPS Sahota are liable to be charged under Section 120(b) of IPC for a criminal conspiracy to frame me in sacrilege cases,” he told the mediapersons.
Speaking on the Congress’s promise of debt waiver to the state farmers, the former deputy chief minister said the farmers, as well as farm unions, could never be satisfied until the government implemented the complete waiver as promised ahead of the 2017 polls. “The Congress party even took an oath on the Gutka Sahib on this issue and Channi was a party to this commitment. Now, he should not try to run away from it,” he added.
On Wednesday’s meeting of farmer union leaders with the chief minister, Sukhbir said the representatives were expected to take up the shortage and black-marketeering of DAP fertiliser.
On the cancellation of permits of buses owned by the Badals, Sukhbir named transport minister Amrinder Singh Raja Warring behind the unjust move as it was done without issuing a notice. “We do not owe even a single rupee in taxes to the Punjab government. In contrast, companies of Congress leaders are defaulters but are not being proceeded against,” he said.
SAD leaders Prem Singh Chandumajra, Daljit Singh Cheema, Raj Kumar Gupta, and Hansraj Josan were also present.
‘Harsimrat not to contest state polls’
Sukhbir said that party’s Lok Sabha MP from Bathinda Harsimrat Kaur Badal will not contest the upcoming state polls. However, he said, no decision has been taken on five-time CM Parkash Singh Badal’s contesting the state polls. “The decision will be discussed at the party level,” he added.
