Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Chandigarh, Congress Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha Capt Amarinder Singh today lashed out at the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal for resorting to his characteristic ways of political blackmail. “It is so characteristic of Mr Badal to rake up Panthic issues for personal vested interests”, he remarked, while referring to Mr Badal’s speech at the Northern Zonal Council in New Delhi recently.
Capt Amarinder maintained that for Mr Badal no Sikh is a true Sikh if he does not succumb to his (Badal’s) line. “If any Sikh is with the Congress or any other party like BJP, he is not a Sikh for Mr Badal”, he observed while pointing out, “he (Mr Badal) had even termed Panth Rattan Sardar Gurcharan Singh Tohra and Jagdev Singh Talwandi as traitors”.
The former Chief Minister said, this was the last and desperate bid of Mr Badal to rake up panthic issues to conceal his own failures as he had realised ground slipping beneath his feet. “Hazoor Sahib has an independent management body and they have every right to appoint their own people to the committee”, he pointed out, while asking, “why should Mr Badal have any objection, particularly when the Gurdwara management there was being run very efficiently?”
Just because someone does not belong to Mr Badal’s Akali Dal does not mean he has no right to hold a prominent position in the affairs of Hazoor Sahib, Capt Amarinder asserted, while adding, similarly the Haryana SGPC was being demanded by the Sikhs of Haryana. “It is Mr Badal who is trying to interfere and deny them (the Haryana Sikhs) their right and not anybody else”, he asserted.
He said, Mr Badal should better have raised the issue of farmers like his Haryana counterpart did and got heavy concessions and relaxations for procurement of wheat in that state. “But, Mr Badal is never interested in anyone else other than his own self and hence is raising the imaginary issues like alienation”, he observed, while adding, if anybody is alienated it is the youth of Punjab who is jobless and does not see any ray of hope. “And it is Mr Badal who is responsible for this alienation and nobody else”, he remarked.
Capt Amarinder said, Mr Badal should be more concerned about the drug addiction that has ruined the entire generation. “So many young boys have been hooked to this scourge with free supply being facilitated by the Akali government in the state”, he pointed out, while adding, “if there is any serious problem Punjab was facing it was not any alienation due to any perceived interference as Mr Badal will try to make others believe, but the future of the young generation which he (Mr Badal) has destroyed by his callous silence and connivance”.
