Politicians head for border villages

Anirudh Gupta

Ferozepur, October 1

Political leaders are making a beeline to border villages to meet the evacuees. Some of them have been camping in the villages since Wednesday.

Having spent a night in “Gatti,” a cluster of villages in his constituency, Congress MLA Parminder Singh Pinki said he wanted to have a first-hand look at the situation. “Only because they reside along the border, the people have to undergo the trauma of leaving their homes every now and then,” he said.

He said the Central and state governments were trying to “hard-sell the situation”, apparently to gain electoral advantage in Punjab and UP. “Why only the people from Punjab have been asked to evacuate overnight,” he said while ridiculing the state government for making inadequate arrangements for the border residents.

Several leaders from the SAD-BJP combine have also visited border villages in the past few days. This includes former state BJP chief Kamal Sharma, SAD MLA Joginder Singh, BJP constituency incharge and former CPS Sukhpal Singh Nannu.

Nannu, who has been touring these villages on his bike, said the people were disturbed as the relief camps had been established far from the villages.