At the event in Bathinda, Saturday. (Express Photo)
In a jolt to the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), former Member of Parliament Paramjit Kaur Gulshan Saturday joined the faction led by expelled Akali leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa.
Along with the two times MP and once the SAD’s Dalit face, a former MLA Bhola Singh Gillpatti too joined the faction in the presence of Dhindsa, who along with his son Parminder, was expelled from the Akali Dal in January this year.
Gulshan, whose father was a Union minister in the Janata Party government, was elected to Lok Sabha from Bathinda in 2004 and Faridkot in 2009. In 2004, Bathinda was a reserved seat. After the Election Commission notified Bathinda as a general seat, Gulshan had shifted to Faridkot in 2009 vacating the seat for Harsimrat Kaur Badal, the daughter-in-law of former chief minister Parksh Singh Badal.
She sought reelection from Faridkot in 2014 but lost to Aam Admi Party’s Prof Sadhu Singh by over 2 lakh votes. After the electoral loss, she wasn’t much active in the political scene of the state and also was not seen much in Akali Dal’s functions.
Gulshan, who also remained the president of Istri Akali Dal, said accused the SAD of discriminating against the scheduled caste and backward class leaders.
“Akali Dal was formed in 1920 with some principles. Over the years, those principles got lost and the party started practicing extreme discrimination against the SC/BC community and their leaders. They keep shifting such leaders from one place to another irrespective of the fact whether they have a win record or not. They did this with Darshan Singh Kotfatta, who despite winning the election from Bathinda was shifted to Malaut and Faridkot. A person with self-respect will never accept this,” she said.
Kotfatta, however, refuted the allegation and said, “I stand by my party and will serve wherever I am told to”.
Without namings Badals, Gulshan, whose father Dhanna Singh Gulshan too was an Akali leader, said, “My father made great contributions in every morcha of Akali Dal and remained in jail for many years. However, the SGPC did not even allow us to put his photo up in the SGPC museum saying that they did not have orders for that”.
She said she is fighting for the principles on which the Akali Dal was formed and for which her father worked for years.
Meanwhile, Dhindsa said that SAD president Sukhbir Badal often says that “he gave me designations” in the party. “I want to tell him that even we gave him the designation of the party President. We took part in morchas and remained in jails and that’s why we were roles in the party. But Sukhbir did nothing and still, he is the SAD president,” said Dhindsa who has joined hands with SAD Taksali.