Ridiculing Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader for trying to shift blame for party’s debacle in Shahkot to the high command and party workers, Punjab Cabinet ministers on Friday asked Sukhpal Singh Khaira to take moral responsibility for the “shameful” defeat and quit as the leader of the Opposition in the Vidhan Sabha.
Reacting to Khaira’s reported statement blaming AAP’s top brass and local cadres, the ministers said that it was shameful the way Khaira was taking the high moral ground to pin the blame for his party’s poor show in Shahkot on everyone but himself.
“An election is a collective victory or a defeat for any party, but Khaira evidently did not believe in this dictum,” said the ministers, including Rural Development Minister Tripat Singh Bajwa, Revenue and Mining Minister Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria and Jails Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa.
“AAP is a divided house and it is clear for quite some time now, but Khaira’s statement had exposed the extent of the discord,” said the ministers adding, “If Khaira is so dissatisfied with the AAP leadership’s functioning, why doesn’t he quit the party…any self-respecting individual would have do so by now”.
In fact, said the ministers, Khaira should have taken on the party’s top leadership openly and aggressively if he had felt so strongly about the AAP’s lack of organizational capability in taking on the Shahkot by-election challenge.
He chose to conveniently ignore the issue all through, choosing to spend his time, instead, in indulging in cheap theatrics and antics, which have clearly backfired on him and his party, they added.
The Ministers were equally contemptuous of SAD president Sukhbir Badal’s attempt to play down his party’s defeat in Shahkot by claiming to retain its vote share in the bypoll. “It is strange that the ‘groundswell’ of public support Sukhbir is claiming for SAD in Shahkot did not manifest in the party’s poll victory,” they said observing that even the Akali share of votes had actually decline from that in the last Assembly election.
The ministers also flayed Sukhbir for trying to shrug off SAD candidate’s defeat in the party stronghold by accusing the Congress government of ‘misuse’ of officials. Sukhbir’s desperate attempt to grab at non-existent straws was laughable, they said, pointing out that the Capt Amarinder Singh government had pulled the rug from under SAD’s feet several days before the voting by accepting their demand for central forces to ensure free and fair by-election.
By choosing to ignore the harsh reality of the outright rejection of SAD by the voters, Sukhbir was simply digging the party’s grave even deeper, which would become more amply clear in next year’s lok Sabha election, said the ministers. 2019 will see the Akalis and their ally, the BJP, suffer a total rout not just in Punjab but across the country, they warned.