Former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal (right) and SAD President Sukhbir Singh Badal. (PTI Photo/File)
Crying foul over results of Zila Parishad and Panchayat Samiti polls, Shiromani Akali Dal will hold its core committee meeting on Sunday. The meeting, it is learnt, is scheduled to be held in Badal village and “state-sponsored hooliganism” in the polls will be the main agenda.
This is rare that SAD core committee will meet at the native place of SAD patron and former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal. According to a senior core commitee member, his only memory of core committee meeting at Badal was about six months ago. Otherwise, party’s core committee meeting is held in Chandigarh, the leader said.
SAD Member of Parliament in Rajya Sabha Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa said the meeting is being held in Badal village owing to “health condition” of Parkash Singh Badal. SAD MP in Lok Sabha from Anandpur Sahib Prem Singh Chandumajra said “goonda tantar (hooliganism) unleashed by Congress” would be main agenda of the meeting.
“Goonda tantar in election is forcing SAD to come out on the streets,” said Chandumajra, alleging “mass scale irregularities during the counting process” and “rejection of papers of SAD candidates while filing papers”.
SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal in a statement flayed Congress government for “making a mockery of democracy and making Punjab infamous all over the world for its state-sponsored goonda-ism to sabotage people’s will”. “This is disgraceful but it shows how quickly the Congress has lost the confidence of the people,” Sukhbir said. “The Congress really lost this poll hands down and they know it. They were forced to announce a fabricated and fake victory through alteration of results,” he added.