Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal on Sunday alleged the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had “very close links” with the radical organisations.
Sukhbir’s allegations came in the wake of recent incident of AAP MP Bhagwant Mann uploading the Parliament’s security set-up on social media. Terming it as a “very serious lapse”, Sukhbir said: “I think it is a very serious (security) lapse, what Bhagwant Mann has done. I openly say that the AAP has very close links with radical organisations.”
Mann on Thursday shot a video clip of his journey from his residence to the Parliament House, including movement past various security check points, and posted it on the social media, drawing flak from various quarters for putting the Parliament complex security in danger.
Sukhbir claimed had any MP belonging to the SAD committed such a blunder, the party would have taken strict action but the AAP leadership had sprung up to the defence of its Parliamentarian instead of initiating any action against him which signifies AAP links with separatist forces.
Also the State’s Home Minister, Sukhbir said the “novice party” did not care at all about either the religious tenets of any religion as well as security of nation.
“Radical organisations, people who participated in the ‘Sarbat Khalsa’ (grand assembly of Sikhs), they were all linked to AAP,” claimed Sukhbir after offering prayers at the Golden Temple on Sunday along with his wife and Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal. Sukhbir said the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) was not threatened by the emergence of the AAP on Punjab’s political scene. “The more the opponents, better for the Akali Dal. The public will control them. People will reject them. No one is now bothered about them,” he said.
Also the president of the Akali Dal, which is in alliance with the BJP, Sukhbir refused to comment on cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu and his wife. “I don’t want to comment on them,” he said.
Sidhu had recently quit the Rajya Sabha, where he was nominated by the BJP-led Government earlier this year. His wife is a sitting BJP legislator from the Amritsar East Assembly seat and is also a Chief Parliamentary Secretary in the State Government.