“There can be no other reason for the stoic silence of the Congress high command as well as Rahul Gandhi on this issue,” he said. (Express Photo by Gurmeet Singh)
SAD candidate from Shahkot, Naib Singh Kohar, filed his nomination papers in the presence of SAD president Sukhbir Badal and BJP state chief Shwet Malik on Wednesday. Addressing a rally here before party candidate Naib Singh Kohar filed his nomination papers, Badal alleged that money had changed hands in the award of the party ticket to Congress Shahkot bypoll candidate Hardev Singh Laadi.
He asked Election Commission to arrest Laadi Sherowalia immediately in the case filed against him by a local SHO and also said that Congress president Rahul Gandhi was silent on this issue because he had awarded the party ticket to Laadi due to extraneous reasons.
“There can be no other reason for the stoic silence of the Congress high command as well as Rahul Gandhi on this issue,” he said. The SAD president also urged the Election Commission to ensure due protection to Mehatpur SHO Parminder Bajwa who had registered the FIR against the Congress candidate.
He asked how Parminder Bajwa had been held to be honest and dedicated police officer till January last year when he had been awarded the DGP’s commendation disc. “How can an officer who has been given the highest serving award in the Punjab Police a few months back now be held to be mentally unstable just because he has registered an FIR against the Congress candidate?” he asked.
Speaking about the controversy surrounding the history books, he said the CM had to finally bow before the anger of the people and form a “committee of Sikh scholars to review her entire issue”. BJP state president Shwet Malik alleged that governance was totally paralysed in Punjab and various “mafias formed by Congress leaders” had taken over the state.