SAD leaders gherao residence of Cabinet Minister Ashu

Will reopen all cases against him if voted to power: Majithia

SAD leaders and workers hold a protest in Ludhiana. Photo: Ashwani Dhiman

Our Correspondent
Ludhiana, November 4

The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) said today that it would reopen all cases against Food and Civil Supplies Minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu if it voted to power in the state and that the minister would be prosecuted for his alleged terrorist links and embezzlement of central ration.

Party workers, led by former minister Bikram Singh Majithia, took out a march and gheraoed the minister’s residence and courted arrest in large numbers. Later, they were let-off.

First come clean on foodgrain scam: Cong MP

Commenting on the SAD dharna, Congress MP from Ludhiana Ravneet Singh Bittu has, however, asked SAD leaders to first come clean on Rs 31,000-crore foodgrain scam committed during the tenure of the erstwhile SAD-BJP government before questioning the credibility of Cabinet Minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu.

Majithia said the minister was not only indulging in rampant corruption but was also indulging in land grabbing and other illegal acts. “Once the SAD comes to power in Punjab, we will get all these cases probed and ensure appropriate punishment to Ashu.”

He read out the text of PUNSUP DM Praveen Jain’s conversation with a commission agent in which the former was asking for a bribe of Rs 1.45 per bag and demanding 25 per cent of the bribe money in advance so that the same could be handed over to the PUNSUP MD as well as Ashu to facilitate Rahul Gandhi’s tractor rally in the state.

The SAD leader alleged that the minister was involved in a corruption of nearly Rs 100 crore per season, adding that the PUNSUP case as well as all other criminal acts of the minister would be thoroughly probed during the SAD regime.

Meanwhile, other speakers at the dharna, including Maheshinder Singh Grewal, Charanjit S Atwal and Sharanjit S Dhillon, highlighted how Ashu had assaulted and toppled the ‘dastar’ of a ‘gursikh’ during the Dakha by-elections and how he had got building of YAD leader Gurdeep Gosha’s kin demolished solely because YAD activists had held a protest against former PM Rajiv Gandhi.