AAP resorting to violence:Sukhbir

Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 10

SAD president Sukhbir Badal today blamed AAP MP Bhagwant Mann for the attack on his cavalcade in Jalalabad on Sunday.

Sukhbir said Mann had been instigating people in his rallies to stone Akali leaders. "We don't resort to such measures. The Election Commission should take note of Mann's inflammatory speeches," he said adding the AAP should not see the Akali politeness as a sign of weakness.

‘AAP giving fight on 22 seats’

Sukhbir claimed that the Akali Dal would win 70-80 seats, while AAP would get less than 10. "AAP is giving us credible fight on 22 seats in total. And our real fight is not with AAP or the Congress. It is with Congress rebels who will get more votes than the main Congress candidates," Sukhbir said.

Sukhbir made fun of Congress manifesto saying it was a stamp on development during the 10 years' of the SAD-BJP rule. "The Congress manifesto is silent on power generation, road connectivity and water supply and sewerage. It is because the Akali Dal has already provided all these," he claimed.

Taking a dig at Manpreet Badal, Sukhbir said Manpreet had quit the SAD on the issue of ending subsidies for the farmers, but now he had promised the same in his manifesto. 

On Congress promise of ending VIP culture, he said: "Manpreet and his father have 20 gunmen. They had sought the security. They use red beacons on their vehicles. Other Congress MLAs also use it. When they are using the facilities of a VIP while being in Opposition, wonder what they will do on coming to power?"

The SAD president said the Congress had even gone back on the loan waiver promise for which the party had got lakhs of forms filled from farmers. He said the level of skullduggery by the party could be seen from the fact that the nine-point agenda released by Amarinder promised a loan waiver to farmers, but the fine print in the official manifesto released by former PM Manmohan Singh only stated that the party would vigorously pursue to get the loans waived.