A day after doctor-turned-legislator Dr Navjot Kaur Sidhu lashed out at the SAD for running mafia raj in Punjab, the ruling party on Monday questioned her for delaying her resignation for so long if she really felt so strongly about it and continued to enjoy profits of office for all these years.
Senior SAD leaders —Daljeet Cheema, Prem Singh Chandumajra and Mahesh Inder Singh Grewal— took strong exception to Dr Navjot referring to Akalis as mafia.
“She herself preferred to clung to the post of chief parliamentary secretary for more than three years and be a part of the mafia. What prevented her to submit her papers earlier if she really felt so strongly about it…She enjoyed all the profits of office for all these years,” they said.
SAD leaders maintained that the Awaaz-e-Punjab outfit, floated by Sidhu and Bains Brothers, “is lost in political wilderness following its rejection by the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). and the outfit is now in mode of indecisiveness and groping in dark to gain some political mass”.
“Awaaz-e-Punjab has lost its political relevance in the state politics,” they added.
Making a frontal attack on Sidhu couple, the Akali leaders said that observing “alliance dharma” , the party had restrained from commenting on couple despite numerous provocation when the couple had made irresponsible statements and accusations against the senior Akali leadership, even against party patron Parkash Singh Badal.
Contesting Navjot Kaur assertion that she continued to be in BJP because she did not want to thrust a bye-election on her electorate, the trio said that she was actually scared of facing electorate in bye-election as they are already fed up with her histrionics. The electorate would have thrown her in dustbin of history even before the dawn of 2017, the Akali leaders added.
SAD leaders said that the Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh had slammed party’s door on Sidhu describing the former cricketer as “undisciplined like his former colleague Jagmeet Brar who have no place in Congress”. “His wife still shamelessly claims that the negotiations are on for couple’s induction is Congress,” they added.
“Similarly AAP, which prompted Sidhu to quit Rajya Sabha and BJP on a tacit understanding that he would be projected as the party’s face in the upcoming Punjab assembly elections, ditched him to fend for himself,” they said.
SAD leaders concluded that there was one lesson for Sidhu couple that both the AAP and the Congress can’t be trusted. This lesson is for leaders as well for people who should shun these two parties, they added.