Punjab: Former SAD (B) MLA Nirmal Singh joins Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa's group

PATIALA: Former MLA from Bassi Pathana Justice (Retd) Nirmal Singh along with some of his supporters joined Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa on Thursday at Bassi Pathana town of Fatehgarh Sahib district.
Nirmal Singh claimed that the caste-based discrimination within the SAD (Badal) and the dictatorial behaviour of party’s president Sukhbir Singh Badal forced him to leave the party that had also abandoned its basic principles.
While speaking to TOI, he criticised the BJP’s policy of interlinking of rivers and said he would never support it as it can prove disastrous for Punjab and was against the riparian principles.
“On January 29, 1955, the Centre allocated 8 MAF water to Rajasthan from Punjab’s share without any right of Rajasthan under the internationally accepted riparian principles. Even, no royalty has been given to Punjab. But, Punjab also failed to hold any meeting with non-riparian states to get any royalty”, said, Nirmal Singh, who in May 2000, was elevated as Judge of Punjab and Haryana court. He later joined as Member of Interstate Water Dispute Tribunal in December 2009 and then resigned from the post in January 2012.
Nirmal Singh, 73, who was elected as a SAD (B) MLA from Bassi Pathana in 2012 and had also contested unsuccessfully from Chamkaur Sahib in 2017, said he was inactive for over two years. “I had joined Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa’s new political party ‘Shiromani Akali Dal’.