Calling the Congress party’s three-day sit-in protest in front of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal’s official residence “stage-managed”, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Sunday alleged that it had “further established the political collusion” between the party and the ruling SAD-BJP combine in poll-bound Punjab.
The AAP accused the Akalis and the Congress of playing a “friendly match” and “trying hard to hoodwink” the people of Punjab while struggling to “prop each other up” in the state.
“The stage-managed Congress agitation against the SAD-BJP government has further established, without a shred of doubt, their complete political collusion in Punjab,” said AAP’s Punjab convenor Gurpreet Singh Waraich (Ghuggi). Claiming that no other political party, pressure group, NGO or any other association demanding justice was allowed to go anywhere near Badal’s residence, he said: “The Congress legislators were not only allowed to sit on a dharna, but adequate arrangements were made for their food and night stay during the stage-managed protest show for three consecutive days.”
Ghuggi said anyone, including state Congress chief Capt Amarinder Singh and other senior leaders of the party, was free to join the dharna “as and when they pleased”.
“Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) Section-144 is always in force around the Chief Minister’s residence to thwart any unlawful assembly of more than four persons but the Congress leaders had free access to the site of the dharna,” he added.
Only on Saturday night, the Congress leaders called their three-day sit-in off after the state government transferred ludhiana ADCP-IV Jaswinder Singh in connection with the ‘Chitta Ravan’ clashes. They were demanding his suspension for his “bias” in slapping cases on their party colleagues and not against Akali activists who too were involved in the clashes.
Ghuggi claimed that firstly, the people of Punjab “failed to understand what the Congress agitation was about”. “Secondly, though Amarinder kept saying the party was against the ‘Chitta Ravan’, he failed to specify who the ‘Chitta Ravan’ of Punjab was. Not even once did he name state Revenue Minister Bikram Singh Majithia,” he said and reminded that it was the same Amarinder who “defended” Majithia when his entire party, including MP Partap Singh Bajwa, was demanding a CBI probe against him. “So now, Amarinder and his party have lost the moral ground in the agitation against the drug menace,” claimed the AAP leader.
He said that it was also laughable that Congress ended its agitation immediately after the ADCP ludhiana was transferred. “Was the real motive of the Capt Amarinder only to get the ADCP removed or fight against the drug menace in PunjabIJ” he asked.
Earlier also, Badal allowed Congress legislators to stay put in Punjab Vidhan Sabha for two nights just to bring the Congress party back to limelight which has lost its political relevance and is struggling for its survival as everyone know that without consent of Badal or Punjab Vidhan Sabha Speaker, no one can stay even for one minute inside the assembly hall after it is adjourned.