Parkash Singh Badal demands minister's expulsion

CHANDIGARH: Former chief minister and SAD patron Parkash Singh Badal has not only demanded registration of a sedition case against local bodies minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, but also his expulsion from the Punjab cabinet for his comments on Pulwama terror attack.

Badal said Sidhu had indulged in an anti-national act by issuing a statement that Pakistan should not be held responsible for the Pulwama terror attack on a CRPF convoy on February 14 despite the Pakistan government's open patronage to Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). Jaish had taken the responsibility for the attack in which over 40 CRPF personnel had lost their lives.

The former five-time chief minister also asked Congress president Rahul Gandhi to shunt out Sidhu from the Punjab cabinet, stating it was strange that while Rahul had condemned Pakistan, his party's minister in Punjab was defending Pakistan's terrorist acts on Indian soil. "The Congress should make an example of Sidhu so that in future no elected representative can ever indulge in any act which comprises the security of the nation and disrespects our armed forces," he added.

After not being allowed to table a resolution calling for declaring Pakistan a terrorist state, former minister Bikram Majithia said the entire country was one in grief after the Pulwana attack. "Today, in the assembly we wanted to table a resolution urging the Centre to declare Pakistan a terrorist nation and also take strictest possible action against the rogue nation for sponsoring terrorism in India, but we were not allowed to do so," said Majithia.

He further added while chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh had condemned Pakistan and even announced that he would teach a lesson to Pak army chief Qamar Bajwa if he tried to create mischief in Punjab, his cabinet colleague Sidhu announced "the Pakistan government and its army did not have any role to play in the Pulwana attack," said Majithia.