Cong to launch anti-Badal drive from June 1

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 21

The Congress is all set to launch a massive political offensive against the ruling Akali Dal in Punjab from June 1 with a plan to follow up its public outreach with a 1,000-km “padyatra” later.

Speaking to The Tribune a day after petitioning President Pranab Mukherjee seeking President’s rule in the state, Punjab Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa said: “We will launch a public connect programme in the state from June 1. The idea is to apprise the masses of mass accumulation of disproportionate assets by the ruling Badal family, rampant conflict of interests between the family and their relatives, mounting farm distress and concerns over the safety of women, especially Dalits.”

After the mass contact, the state Congress proposes to hold a 1000-km “padyatra” across the state to mobilise support against the incumbent government and capture the space of “the most viable political alternative ahead of the 2017 state elections”, which it had lost to AAP in the Lok Sabha elections.

“We pledge to make the state Badal-mukt. That will be our clarion call when we meet people and later when we hold our ‘padyatra’ during which we propose to cover border districts in the first leg and districts along the national highway in the later part,” Bajwa said, adding that the party’s mass contact will start from 35 reserved Assembly segments in line with Congress’ strategy to win back the Dalit vote bank and considering the fact that the victims of the recent molestation cases in the state (Moga and then Muktsar) were all Dalits.

The party is also marking the 125th birth anniversary year of Babasaheb BR Ambedkar this year. Punjab is an important component in Congress’ Dalit strategy, being home to the highest percentage of Dalit population (33 per cent of Punjab’s people are SCs).

While Congress’ mass contact in Punjab will cover major segments in Majha, Doaba and Malwa, the first leg of the “padyatra” proposed in the later part of the year will cover Pathankot, Amritsar, Ferozepur, Bathinda, Sangrur, Patiala, Chandigarh, Ropar, Hoshiarpur and back to Pathankot, Bajwa said.

The Congress is also planning to move Supreme Court against the Badals. “We are planning to move the Supreme Court against disproportionate assets acquired by the Badals and the way they are granting favours to family members by allotting them lucrative tenders,” Bajwa alleged.