Former union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal today saidwhile former chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh had danced to the tunes of theBharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for nearly five years, newly inducted chiefminister Charanjit Singh Channi was following the same line by signing offpolicing in nearly half of Punjab to the centre.
Addressing the media here, Mrs Harsimrat Badal said “thecat is out of the bag. It is now clear that Capt Amarinder Singh was alignedwith the BJP all along and backstabbed his own party as well as Punjabis. Thereason why he helped in framing of the three hated agricultural laws and hidthis from Punjabis for one and a half years also lies exposed. The cosyrelationship which Capt Amarinder shared with the BJP and Prime MinisterNarendra Modi is also clear from the fact that despite being an oppositionchief minister, the BJP never went after him like they did in the case of MamtaBannerjee and others. The most the PM said about Capt Amarinder was that he wasa ‘swatantar fauji’. Capt Amarinder’s statement yesterday that he would formhis own party and align with the BJP is proof that the independent ‘fauji’ wasalways working in collusion with the BJP”.
Mrs Badal said chief minister Charanjit Channi was noless. She said Channi had backstabbed Punjabis by selling off the interests ofthe State to the centre. “Channi readily agreed to the extension of the jurisdiction of the BorderSecurity Force (BSF) to a radius of fifty kilometers from the internationalborder with Pakistan during his meeting with union home minister Amit Shah onOctober 5. Now our major shrines including Sri Darbar Sahab, Durgiana Mandirand Ram Teerath have come under central purview. So have ten districts ofPunjab”. The former union minister said by doing this Channi had weakened thecause of federalism and created the ground for increased central control overPunjab.
She also made itclear that the oaths taken by Capt Amarinder Singh on the holy Gutka Sahab wereused by the entire party including Channi to secure votes in 2017. “Now whenpeople are questioning them for not fulfilling their promises they are beatingthem as was done by Bhoa legislator Joginder Pal. Congressmen should beware ofbehaving like this because the people could then also react in a similarmanner”.
When queried about the killing of a labourer accused ofsacrilege at the Singhu border by Nihangs, Mr Badal said while the SAD alwaysstrongly condemned any incident of sacrilege, a thorough probe should beconducted into the entire case after new revelations. “It has been revealedthat the deceased was a labourer and drug addict without any known sources ofincome. How he reached Singhu needs to be verified. The entire issue could beprobed by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court to bring all facets of the caseout in the open”.
In reply to another query, Mrs Badal said the SAD wouldnever ally with any party which had backstabbed Punjab and which was trying todefame Punjabis besides endangering its agriculture and economy. She also disclosedthat even though she had started getting indications as a union minister thatthe BJP was not following the coalition dharma and not being true to the SAD.“Despite this we continued with the coalition for the betterment of Punjab aswell as peace and communal harmony. However when we came to know that the BJPwas bent upon striking against the farmers of Punjab we chose to sever ourdecades old relations with the party and quit both the ministry as well as theNDA alliance”.
Mrs Badal wasaccompanied by party Jalandhar Cantonment candidate Jagbir Singh Brar and thesenior leadership of the district.