Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal. (File photo) Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president, Sukhbir Singh Badal, on Thursday said his wife, Bathinda MP and former Union Cabinet minister, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, will not contest the upcoming Punjab Assembly elections.
Sukhbir, while taking questions during a press conference after inducting Congress intellectual cell president, Anish Sidana, into the party fold, also said that his party is yet to decide if they will field five times Chief Minister and Akali patriarch, Parkash Singh Badal or not.
On Thursday, Sidana was appointed as the political advisor to Sukhbir for urban areas. Sidana has joined the Akalis along with his entire team and has impressed upon Sukhbir to announce his confidants as office bearers in the party in different capacities.
Earlier, speaking during the occasion, Sukhbir said that farmers as well as Kisan organisations will never be satisfied as long as the Congress government did not implement a complete farm loan waiver as promised.
The SAD president expressed “surprise at the satisfaction expressed by farmer organisation representatives after meeting Punjab Chief Minister, Charanjit Channi, on Wednesday.” He said “the farming community was still awaiting implementation of the complete loan waiver promise”.
Sukhbir further said, “The Congress even took a holy oath on the Gutka Sahib on this issue. Even Chief Minister, Charanjit Singh Channi, was a party to this commitment. He should not try to run away from it now. Farmers as well as farm organisations should tell the Congress to stand by its words”.
He added, “The farmers expected the kisan organizations to take up the issue of extreme shortage and black marketing of DAP fertilizer with the Chief Minister in their meeting with him.”
Sukhbir then went on to allege, “Chief Minister, Charanjit Channi, was the biggest illegal colonizer in the state and was responsible for the mushrooming of illegal colonies in the Kharar-Ropar belt, besides holding control of the sand mining business in the area.”
Sukhbir said, “The Chief Minister was known to patronise illegal colonies as well as the sand mafia. This is the reason why Charanjit Channi has created a farce among the people in the name of reducing sand prices. People are not getting sand at Rs 5 per cubic feet as announced by the CM anywhere but the state exchequer has lost Rs 50 crore advertising this falsehood.”
He also said, “The CM had also come up with the false claim about making petroleum prices cheapest in the region and had also tried to hoodwink Punjabis by reducing power tariff by Rs 3 per unit till March 31.”
Responding to a question on STF (Special Task Force) report on drug abuse that was submitted in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Sukhbir said, “No one is stopping the Punjab government from nabbing the drug lords. It is strange that instead of arresting the drug lords, the Congress government was politicising the issue in the same manner as it had done in the sacrilege case.”
Sukhbir also challenged the government to “present a single shred of evidence against him in the sacrilege case”. He added “the government was working overtime to frame him in the case. The CM, Home Minister, Sukhjinder Randhawa, and DGP IPS Sahota are liable to be held accountable under Sections 120 (b) for hatching a criminal conspiracy to frame me.”
Answering a question regarding cancellation of bus permits, Sukhbir said, “Permits of my transport company had been cancelled even without issuing any notice. We do not owe even one rupee in taxes to the Punjab government. In direct contrast, companies of Congress leaders are defaulters but are not being prosecuted. The state also owes Rs 280 crore in taxes from buses of the state transport undertaking. Only we have been penalized”.
- The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards.
