Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president and Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal on Thursday maintained that by not inviting Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on the foundation stone laying ceremony of PGI’s Satellite Cancer Treatment Centre at Sangrur, the Congress-led UPA Government has not only breached protocol but also harmed democratic values.
“People of Punjab are intelligent enough and fully understood the game plan of the Congress and would teach it a lesson in the forthcoming parliamentary elections,” he said. Senior SAD leader and Revenue Minister Bikram Singh Majithia lauded the Punjabis for boycotting Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s speech by leaving the arena immediately before he got up to speak as a part of foundation stone laying ceremony of satellite centre.
“Punjabis made it clear that though they might be on opposite sides politically, they have not taken kindly to the crass discourtesy shown by Gandhi scion by not inviting the Chief Minister for the function,” he said, adding that this was a lesson to Rahul that Punjabis do not take kindly to his brand of politics which revolves around brash behavior and an ingrained discourtesy towards elders. Commenting on Rahul’s speech, Majithia said that he was shocked to know that he was completely shut off from reality and had chosen to parrot out lines handed over to him by his coterie.
“Rahul talked about drugs and the need to curb their smuggling into the State blissfully unaware that Deputy Chief Minister has initiated a war against drugs which has already resulted in the arrest of 7,500 peddlers,” he said. Terming Rahul Gandhi as “mumma’s boy” who seemed to know nothing beyond what his Mumma had told him, Majithia said the Gandhi scion was apparently also unaware of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report which had ranked Punjab as the safest State in the country with negative crime rate during last five years, and ranked the state having one of the lowest incidences of crime against women.
“Rather than gaining anything politically which was the sole motive of today’s public meeting, the state Congress has portrayed a picture of a party in disarray which has been captured by the entire media and the country…former PCC president Capt Amarinder Singh refused to shake hands with current president Partap Bajwa who hit back with retorts against Amarinder in his speech,” he added.