With the sand mining scam getting muddy with each passing day, Punjab Congress general secretary and Khadoor Sahib MlA Ramanjit Singh Sikki on Friday challenged the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Sukhpal Singh Khaira to prove his charges against him or resign and tender an unconditional apology.
“I understand your frustration over being sidelined within the party after losing the race for State presidency, despite your slanderous and malicious campaign against Bhagwant Mann by accusing him of being a drunkard and drug addict while using your NRI contacts. But that does not mean we will also allow you to run amuck against us as well,” Sikki warned Khaira, while promising to expose him in due course of time.
Responding to Khaira;s “baseless” allegations that he had invested in sand mining, Sikki said if Khaira proved these charges, “I will resign and in case he fails to prove these charges, he must resign and tender an unconditional apology...I do not need a certificate from you as people of Punjab know me and my character quite well as they do yours,” he told Khaira.
Accusing Khaira of being a “serial land grabber”, Sikki told him that he had chosen a wrong target this time. “I will soon be exposing all your shady deals including land grabbing cases and also your association with known criminals and drug peddlers currently languishing in jail,” he said.
The Congress MlA also appealed to the media fraternity to ask for proof and evidence from Khaira to substantiate the allegations he has been levelling against him “for cheap publicity as he has been pushed into political oblivion and wilderness after losing the race to head the AAP in Punjab”.
Taking a dig at Khaira for first demanding a probe into sand mining auction and dismissing it when the probe was instituted, Sikki said: “Khaira obviously knows that there is nothing in the allegations he has been levelling against Rana and that is the reason he is saying that the inquiry commission will give him a clean chit.”
Sikki, referring to the auction of sand mines, pointed out that anybody can get details from the department under Right to Information Act (RTI) and it should not take much time or effort for anyone to establish as who has invested in the (mining) business.
“That is what I am advising Khaira to do to prove himself right instead beating around the bush for his desperate political survival,” he said.