Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Chandigarh, Union food processing industry minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal today said the Congress was trying to derail the national development agenda by giving a political colour to unfortunate incidents, including the murder of a Dalit, to prevent discussion of the National Herald and other corruption cases of the party.
In a statement here, Mrs Badal said it was unfortunate that the Congress was disrupting parliament in a case in which its party president Sonia Gandhi and Vice President Rahul Gandhi had received court summons for usurping National Herald property worth thousands of crores by spending a trifling Rs 50 lakh.
Mrs Badal said such tactics however would not succeed for long. “You will have to account for your thefts and are liable to be justly punished by the law of the land. You cannot wriggle away from your illegal acts by hiding behind the cloak of political persecution and will have to tel the people why you indulged in such illegalities”.
The Union minister also castigated the Punjab Congress and its Abohar based leader for showing rank hypocrisy. She said this leader, who was holding protests to demand action against those who had murdered a Dalit, had campaigned with the very same attackers in the last municipal committee elections. She said it was unfortunate that a case of gang war between two rival gangs, in which a Jat Sikh had also been attacked, was being projected as a case of Dalit persecution.
“Let me remind the Congress that Punjab has the highest Dalit population in the country. Despite this crime against dalits is the lowest in the State according to the national crime bureau statistics”, she added.
Stating this was not the first time that the Congress had tried to sensationalise unfortunate incidents in Punjab, Mrs Badal said the unfortunate part was that the party was also collaborating with AAP to raise such issues in parliament. “Both parties have however not considered it fit to raise the issue of acquisition of assets by Virbhadra Singh or the issue of foreign bank and trusts of Capt Amarinder Singh.
Mrs Badal also asked the Congress to explain the shady business deals of Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi, during the previous UPA regime. The SAD leader said the congress owed an explanation to the nation as to how financial favours were doled out to Vadra during the Congress government in Haryana while an honest officer standing against the son in law of the Gandhi family was victimised.
