Chandigarh, June 27: People’s Party of Punjab chief Manpreet Singh Badal today said the repeated humiliation of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal by the senior BJP leaders and ministers and that too from the stages has reduced the Akali Dal-BJP alliance to just a façade and the precarious situation had already started damaging the state.
“Earlier, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh virtually indicted the Badal government on the issue of drug menace that is posing as the most dangerous monster threatening the state and yesterday the issue lead to alarming show down on the stage itself between the Chief Minister and Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Thawar Chand Gehlot on this very issue on full public view at Hoshiarpur at the state level function to mark International Day against Drugs. One fails to understand as to what common ground is left between the Akali Dal and the BJP to continue the alliance except the politics of opportunism, crony capitalism and political survival”, he added.
He said it was just unbelievable that a senior politician like Badal who is the Chief Minister for the fifth time should be facing such humiliation at the hands of his BJP colleagues and that too publicly. Rather than joining issues with Gehlot, the respectable way out would have been to say quits to the alliance.
Manpreet said in case the Akali Dal was so confident of providing good governance and the so called claims of taking the state to higher orbit of development carried some weight, it was inconceivable as to what prevented Badal from opting for snap poll.
He said moreover, Punjab was being constantly ignored by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on every issue and the situation had come to such a pass that the Chief Minister was facing problems in meeting him. The state had never been discriminated like this ever before and this was now being increasingly realised by the people.
He said the differences between the Akali Dal and the BJP had now come into the open as the BJP was going ahead with its agenda of making Punjab drug free while in the perception of Akali leaders, it was nothing more than a malicious campaign to malign the state. He said one now has to wait and watch as to watch the capacity of the Akali leaders to suffer embarrassment at the hands of the alliance partners.