A day after SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal’s verbal attack on the saffron party, the BJP national general secretary Tarun Chugh on Wednesday lambasted Akali Dal chief for “spreading poison and igniting communal passions” in Punjab in the garb of fighting farmers’ cause.
Chugh, reacting to Sukhbir’s statement that the BJP had become a “tukade-tukade” gang, said that the way SAD president, after parting ways with the BJP, was trying to create a divisive and disruptive narrative was strongly reprehensible. “All Punjabis should wake up to the nefarious designs of Sukhbir Badal and his party,” he said.
“The BJP has always stood for Hindu-Sikh unity in Punjab and has tried to foster the brotherhood whenever there were strains of stress. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken special care to address the Sikh issues, be it providing succour to the 1984 riot victims, or opening of the Kartarpur Corridor, or lifting a ban on foreign donations made to the Golden Temple, and many more like that,” he said. Even during the times of militancy in Punjab, the BJP made sure that the Hindu-Sikh relations did not suffer and the spirit of Punjabiat was kept alive. Even at a time when silver spades were distributed for digging SYL and the copies of the nation’s constitution were burnt, the BJP made sure that bad blood did not spread in the society, he added.
Chugh said that the BJP has always kept the Punjabi spirit of Hindu-Sikh unity alive even during the times when massacre of Hindus was taking place in a planned manner. The BJP stands for the Punjabiyat and will always stand for it, he declared.
On farmers’ front, he said: “The BJP is committed to do everything for their welfare. The three farm bills are meant to double their income by 2022 because farmers had been reeling under heavy debts and have been taking to suicides in a big way. Sukhbir Badal is trying to play cheap politics by painting the BJP like that.”
BJP TRYING TO BREAK SOCIAL FABRIC OF COUNTRY, SAYS PUNJAB CONG
Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar on Wednesday said that while the Congress broke down an enemy nation into two parts in 1971, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is trying to break the social fabric of its own country.
Congratulating the country’s armed forces for not only creating history but also geography, by breaking up Pakistan into “two pieces”, literally, Jakhar said that “tukde-tukde is the characteristic theme of BJP’s strategy to survive by dividing people”.Jakhar pointed out how the party was trying to divide people in the name of region and religion for its survival.Punjab Congress chief, on the occasion of 49th Vijay Divas celebrated to mark the birth of Bangladesh, said that the BJP should learn from the Congress as how it united the people of the country to defeat an ‘enemy-nation’.
“Without the unity among different sections of the people in the country, it would not have been possible to divide Pakistan into two pieces,” he observed.
He regretted that the Prime Minister was so insensitive and indifferent towards the plight of the farmers who were sitting on the roads in this biting cold that should otherwise move any person with a human heart. But, he added, the Prime Minister and the BJP government continue to remain unmoved.
The state Congress chief reiterated that the only solution to the farmers’ problems was repealing of the three black laws, which have been enacted to benefit few corporate houses.