Sukhbir Badal calls for rejecting Congress, AAP

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal addressed booth-level meetings while canvassing for his party candidate for the Tarn Taran Assembly by-election. Addrresing public meetings, Badal accused Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann of rubbing salt in the wounds of the flood-affected farmers after returning from a two-day trip to Chennai wherein he announced that the state helicopter he was leaving behind at Dinanagar was the answer to their prayers.

“Farmers want their bundhs to be strengthened. They want tractors, JCB machines and sand bags. They are being offered a helicopter. Does the CM want to indulge in a propaganda exercise by wishing away his responsibility? For his information, SAD cadre and the SGPC have been doing ‘langar sewa’ since the last four days in all affected areas,” he said.

He criticised the CM for failing to give any compensation for crop damage for the last nearly four years. “Bhagwant Mann has failed Punjab just like he has failed his own constituency of Dhuri which he has visited thrice in the last four years,” he said.

Badal, who addressed eight booth-level meetings across five villages today after visiting flood-affected villages yesterday, appealed to the people to reject the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate (Harmeet Singh Sandhu) who had defected to AAP for gunmen and security escort and support ‘Panth da Parivar’ and wife of a ‘Dharmi Fauji’, Principal Sukhwinder Kaur Randhawa in the by-election.

Asserting that there was no comparison between the two candidates, the SAD president said Principal Randhawa’s husband left the Army after the gruesome attack on the Darbar Sahib in 1984 and had contributed immensely to society both in the field of education and social service. “On the other hand, we have a candidate who has enjoyed all the perks of power but chose to desert the party in its time of need. Such opportunists should be rejected soundly,” he asserted. Urging the people to unite in favour of ‘Quom di jathebandi’ by rejecting both the Congress and AAP who had taken Punjab back by a decade, Sukhbir Badal said, “This is the time to rise as one to strengthen the SAD.”

SAD candidate Sukhwinder Kaur Randhawa, while speaking on the occasion, appealed to the people to create a wave in favour of SAD so that other parties fail to set up their booths in any village in the constituency. Party by-election coordinator and veteran Akali leader Gulzar Singh Ranike also spoke on the occasion besides Alwinder Singh Pakhoke, Iqbal Singh Sandhu and Gaurav Singh Valtoha.