As the joint candidate of the Congress and People’s Party of Punjab for the Lok Sabha polls, Manpreet Singh Badal filed his nomination papers here on Friday, chief minister Parkash Singh Badal lashed out at him claiming that the former has applied for “primary membership” of the Congress.
The chief minister said Manpreet Badal who filled the form for becoming a “primary member” of the Congress on Friday was trapped by the party to weaken the SAD when he had parted ways from the ruling party. “Earlier, my son and deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal had cautioned me that Manpreet was having a liaison with the Congress but I didn’t believe in it at that time,” Badal said.
Addressing a gathering of party supporters as a part of show of strength in Maur assembly segment, the chief minister said the Congress had always tried to weaken the SAD in the state and had helped in emergence of other Akali groups such as SAD (Amritsar) and SAD (Barnala). When it didn’t succeed in its efforts, the Congress trapped Manpreet Badal for the purpose, the chief minister said.
In his address, deputy CM Sukhbir Badal stressed on the gains Punjab will make if an NDA government is formed at the Centre and Bathinda constituency has the SAD MP.
{{/usCountry}}In his address, deputy CM Sukhbir Badal stressed on the gains Punjab will make if an NDA government is formed at the Centre and Bathinda constituency has the SAD MP.
{{/usCountry}}He said as the Punjab chief minister is a very good friend of BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi as well as of BJP candidate from Amritsar, Arun Jaitley, who is likely to be minister at number 2 or 3 position in the NDA government, getting big financial grants from the central government will not be a tough task. Sukhbir claimed that in such a scenario Punjab can even get a grant to tune of `4,000-5,000 crore within seconds.
Sitting MP and SAD candidate Harsimrat Kaur Badal tried to strike an emotional chord with the voters and urged them to compare developmental works done during her tenure as MP to those done before that.