Aam Aadmi Party’s Punjab convener Sucha Singh Chhotepur on Wednesday said the party will not announce its chief ministerial candidate for the 2017 assembly elections in Punjab as the Badals could implicate the person in a drug case and send him to jail.
Chhotepur said this while speaking to mediapersons on the sidelines a meeting organised to induct former municipal council vice-president and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) general council member Khraiti Lal Katna and his daughter-in-law Monica Katna, a sitting councillor, into party fold.
“Je ohna nu pata lag gaya ke sada mukhmantri da umeedwar kehra hai tan Badalan ne uss te chitta pa ke unu jail bhej dena ha (If they find out as who is our chief ministerial candidate, they will plant narcotic powder on him and send him to jail),” he remarked.
Khraiti Lal Katna had left the SAD before the corporation elections when he was prevented from contesting by reserving his ward for women candidates. Monica contested as an Independent and won.
Katna said there was no place for committed workers in the SAD anymore. “As a councillor, I always stood up against the corrupt and exposed their wrongdoings. Some of the local SAD and BJP leaders did not like this and wanted to sideline me. When the party high command did not pay any heed to the matters I raised, I decided to quit the party,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}Katna said there was no place for committed workers in the SAD anymore. “As a councillor, I always stood up against the corrupt and exposed their wrongdoings. Some of the local SAD and BJP leaders did not like this and wanted to sideline me. When the party high command did not pay any heed to the matters I raised, I decided to quit the party,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}“I am highly impressed with AAP’s fight against corruption. It is the only party which is working for the welfare of the society”, he said.
Meanwhile, hundreds of other SAD and BJP workers, including BJP’s former Garhshankar in-charge Naresh Saggar and SAD youth wing’s former senior vice-president Satwant Singh Sian, also joined the AAP at a function held at Kalgidhar gurdwara. Chhotepur welcomed them and said the party needed dedicated and honest workers.
Addressing an impressive gathering of workers, Chhotepur announced that after coming to power in Punjab, the AAP would put an end to the drug trade in the state, which had ruined lakhs of households. He said governance had taken a back seat in the SAD-BJP government as its leaders are busy filling their own coffers. “Postings of even the lowest rung of officials are done on the basis of their loyalty to the ruling party and not on merit. The dynastic rulers treat the public as their subjects. People of all sections are fed up with the regime and want a change. They see a hope in AAP that is why more and more people are coming to join us,” he claimed.